Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine report have a confirmed that an experimental procedure that allows patients to receive kidney transplants from incompatible donors is successful.
As reported in The Hub, of all the patients on a kidney donor waiting list, 20,000 of them are “highly sensitized.” Their particular antibodies make it exceedingly difficult to find a compatible donor.
Under the procedure, called desensitization, a patient’s bloodstream is stripped its natural antibodies which are then replaced by other, temporary antibodies. After the transplantation, the patient’s body makes new antibodies, which for some reason are more likely to be friendly to the new organ.
According to the study, after eight years, patients who opted to receive a kidney from an incompatible living donor have experienced significantly higher rate of survival than those who stayed on dialysis while waiting for a compatible kidney.
