Transplant Facts

FACT: You are more likely to need a transplant than become a donor.

FACT: A donor can donate a heart, lungs, two kidneys, pancreas, liver and small bowel and restore the sight of two others.

FACT: Donors can also give bone and tissue such as skin, heart valves and tendons. Skin grafts have helped people with severe burns and bone is used in orthopaedic surgery.

FACT: The majority of relatives agree to organ donation. Objection is virtually unknown if family members are aware that their loved ones wanted to donate. This is why it is so important for people to discuss organ and tissue donation with their families.

FACT: Most organ donations come from people who have died while on a ventilator in a hospital intensive care unit. Organs, particularly hearts and lungs, deteriorate very quickly without an oxygen supply and the ventilator is able to keep blood and oxygen circulating after death.

FACT: Traditionally organ donors have come from two groups: road accident and brain. haemorrhage patients. Improved road safety and medical intervention mean that fewer in both groups are dying.

FACT: The age profile of people who have donated organs after their death has changed in the past decade with more aged over 50 and fewer younger donors. Older donors are less likely to be able to donate as many of their organs as younger people as some organs may become less suitable for transplantation as people age. But organs from people in their 70s and 80s are transplanted successfully .

FACT: The number of people needing a transplant is expected to rise steeply over the next decade due to an ageing population, an increase in kidney failure and scientific advances resulting in more people being suitable for a transplant .

FACT: Transplanting a kidney patient costs £20,000 in the first year and £500 a year thereafter - £46,000 over five years. A patient remaining on dialysis would cost up to £175,000 over the same period.

FACT: Black people are three times as likely as the general population to develop kidney failure.

FACT: The need for organs in the Asian community is three to four times higher than that of the white community because conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, that can result in organ failure, occur more often in the Asian population.
 
FACT: The number of living donor kidney transplants has doubled since 1997

FACT: The oldest solid organ donor ever recorded in the UK was 82

FACT: The oldest recorded cornea donor was 103

FACT: The oldest recorded recipient of an organ in the UK was an 81-year-old kidney patient

FACT: The oldest recipient of a cornea transplant in the UK was 104

FACT: Surgical techniques such as splitting livers have meant that a donor can help more patients than ever before

FACT: All the major religions support organ donation and many actively promote it Organ donor rates are now included in health authority performance indicators.

FACT: 28% of people on the NHS Organ Donor Register are aged between 15 and 24 when they join. A further 26% are aged between 25 and 34.8% are 65 or over when they join .

FACT: More women than men have signed up on the NHS Organ Donor Register

Kidney Wales Foundation is indebted to and recognises that the following information was provided by UK Transplant www.uktransplant.org.uk