Understanding

Understanding: Statistics/Facts

Facts
The success rates of transplant surgery have improved remarkably, but growing shortages exist in the supply of organs and tissues available for transplantation. The result: thousands of people die while waiting for the ultimate gift…LIFE!

These numbers tell a story. The IAOD encourages everyone to find out more information about organ and tissue donation, and make an informed decision about this important issue. *

Know the Facts:

- Over 89,000 U.S. patients are currently waiting for an organ transplant; nearly 3,000 new patients are added to the waiting list each month.

- At any given time, there is an average of 3,000 patients searching the National Marrow Donor Program Registry.

- About 68 people receive an organ transplant every day in the U.S., while approximately 100 are added to the waiting list.

- Approximately 25% of all organ donors represent minorities; however, minorities make up almost 50% of those on the transplant waiting list.

- Every day, approximately 18 people die while waiting for an organ or tissue transplant.

- Because of the lack of available donors in this country, 2,025 kidney patients, 1,347 liver patients, 458 heart patients and 361 lung patients died in 2001 while waiting for life-saving organ transplants.

- People who are 65 years of age or older may be acceptable donors, particularly of corneas, skin, bone and total body donation. In 1999, more than 580 people age 65 and older were organ donors.

- An estimated 10,000 to 14,000 people who die each year meet the criteria for organ donation, but less than half of those individuals become actual organ donors.

- Vital organs may be recovered and transported thousands of miles to a transplant center, due, in part, to advances in preservation techniques.

- Thousands of patients have received successful transplants from living donors since 1954. In 1999, the survival rate for a living donor kidney transplant was 97.9%.

- Parents, children, siblings, and other relatives are eligible to donate organs to family members, but very few people know that unrelated donors (for example, spouses or close friends) may also donate their organs if they provide a match for the recipients.

-Living unrelated donation is a new and growing source of donors. In 2003, there were 23,363 organ transplants performed in the United States. More than 6,447 of these were living donor transplants. During this year, the number of living donor transplants exceeded the number of deceased donor transplants for the first time.

*Information has been provided by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and the United Network for Organ Sharing

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