Organ Donation by Unrelated Donors

The transplantation of organs is a triumph of modern medicine. Life expectancy and the quality of life are greater with kidney transplantation than with maintenance dialysis. Successful liver and heart transplantations are lifesaving. However, the gap between the need for organs and their supply has widened progressively over the past decade. In 1999, 6448 people in the United States died while waiting for an organ transplant; 3088 of them were waiting for a kidney, and 1767 for a liver (United Network for Organ Sharing: unpublished data, May 6, 2000).These grim facts have led to growing pressure to increase the . . .