Kidney Transplants

Transplant is one of two treatment options for end stage renal disease. The other treatment option for patients is long-term dialysis. People who receive a kidney transplant typically live longer and more productive lives than those on dialysis. The average length of time for a kidney transplant to function is about 15 to 20 years from a living donor, and 10 to 15 years from a deceased donor.

At the Trinity Health Grand Rapids Kidney Transplant Center, our main priority is to provide our patients with individualized, compassionate, and expert care. We pride ourselves on being one of the largest and most successful community hospital-based transplant programs in the country.

Our program was established in 1973 and we have continued to grow our program every year to ensure we provide the patients of our community with kidney transplant as a treatment option. As we look forward to the next 50 years and beyond, we will continue to offer ongoing advancements in surgical techniques and innovative donor options to offer more hope to our patients.

Types of Kidney Transplant

Living Donor

Most people are born with two kidneys. One is enough to live normally. Living kidney donation is when a healthy person agrees to have surgery to remove one kidney. That kidney will be placed inside a person with kidney disease.

For the recipient, this is the greatest chance to live a long, healthy life. For the donor, it is a chance to give the greatest gift – the gift of life. Donors also live a long, healthy life after donation. Kidneys from living donors typically last 15 to 20 years. To receive a living kidney donor, the recipient candidate and donor candidate must both complete the evaluation process and any required testing.

There are several types of living kidney donation.

Living Kidney Direct Donation: These kidney donors know their recipient and have stated they want to donate directly to them. The donor and recipient must be compatible blood types for this type of donation.
Living Kidney Paired Exchange: This is an exciting program where living kidney donors can donate their kidney to a recipient they do not know in exchange for a compatible or better matched kidney for their original recipient. This allows the opportunity for incompatible pairs to still receive a living kidney transplant.

Trinity Health Grand Rapids Kidney Transplant Center is proud to be the only adult kidney transplant program in Michigan to partner with the National Kidney Registry (NKR), the largest kidney exchange program in the world. You can learn more about NKR on their website.
Living Kidney Anonymous Donation: Sometimes a person contacts the transplant center and wishes to be an anonymous kidney donor. An “anonymous” donor is someone who does not know the person they are donating to. Often this means that the donor does not know anyone who needs a kidney transplant but wants to donate a kidney simply to help another person.

Deceased Donor

A deceased donor is a donor who has recently died. The average national wait time for a deceased donor kidney is 3 to 5 years, however that wait time depends on several factors, including the time spent on dialysis.

Kidneys from deceased donors typically last 10 to 15 years. To receive a deceased donor kidney, the recipient candidate is placed on the national waiting list through the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). When a deceased organ donor is identified, UNOS’s computer system will match individuals waiting for a transplant with compatible donor organs.

To learn more about becoming a registered organ donor and have your name added to the Michigan Organ Donor Registry to provide hope to those on the transplant waiting list, you can visit the Gift of Life Michigan website.