Chain of Kidney Transplants Gives 14 Patients New Life

WASHINGTON (June 15) -- Members of a human "domino chain" met for the first time today, representing most of the 28 organ donors and patients involved in a world-record series of linked kidney transplants.

Many of the patients were ailing from kidney disease but had been unable to find a match in a kidney donated by family or from a national registry, which has a waiting list of 82,000 people.

Doctors from four hospitals, including Georgetown University Hospital and Washington Hospital Center, arranged the series of linked transplants. They matched up patients who had willing living donors -- such as family members -- who were not compatible with them but were a good match with other patients.

The chain began when Jennifer Whitford, a 24-year-old mother of two from Sebring, Fla., died in an accident and her family donated her kidney.

Her mother, Denise Milliken, wore a T-shirt with the word "Donate" in giant letters to a news conference today at Washington Hospital Center, where many of the donors and their kidney recipients met for the first time.

"It gives me comfort to know that Jennifer helped someone who really needed her," Milliken said.

Whitford's kidney went to Brenda Wolfe of Mount Airy, Md. Wolfe's husband, Ralph, had offered to donate a kidney to make her eligible for the exchange. When she got Whitford's kidney, hospital officials told him he no longer needed to donate.

But Ralph Wolfe said he knew someone was counting on him to show up in the operating room.

"Who was I to say a precious daughter died and gave my wife life, and I'm going to hold on to this kidney just in case?" he said just after meeting Gary Johnson, who now has his kidney. Draping an arm over Johnson's shoulder, Wolfe said, "To me this is another adventure. I love this guy. I don't even know him and I love him."

Johnson, a grandfather who had suffered from diabetes for a decade and was in kidney failure, said he was thrilled. "Tomorrow, no dialysis. I love Ralph."

Donor Denise Blackwell said she was grateful to be part of a chain of events that helped her father, whom she had watched deteriorate before the surgery. "All you want to do is hold them but that doesn't help," said Blackwell, of Hyattsville, Md. Her kidney went to a young man whose stepfather gave his kidney to her father, Cardinal Crusoe.

Doctors dubbed the 14 transplant pairs the "Prodigal" because many of them were not going to get kidneys through traditional waiting lists, but they returned to the hospital with a second chance because of the domino exchange. The surgeries were performed between May 26 and June 12.

Dr. Jimmy Light, head of transplant services at Washington Hospital Center, said that previously about one-third of patients were incompatible in finding a donor. Now, through new medical procedures and exchanges like the 14-step chain just performed, there is hope for those patients.

"Dialysis keeps you alive, but transplants let you live," Light said, surveying the podium full of donors and recipients. "These people have their lives, thanks to the donors."

Such exchanges are particularly helpful for African-Americans, who have a harder time finding matches from the national donor registry. About 39 percent of those on the national waiting list are African-American, but they get only 15 percent of the donated kidneys because of trouble finding matches.

"The need is out there to such a great extent," said Keith Melancon, head of the kidney transplants at Georgetown.

The group of donors gathered today included many family members, people who donated on behalf of someone in their church or volunteer organization, and two people without any connection to the sick patients.

Jeffrey Wood of Maine was one of those who underwent the surgery just to help a stranger. Jeffrey Tucker, a Pennsylvania father of four who received Wood's kidney, said the process had given him more faith in mankind.

"It's nice to know there are decent people left in the world who think of other people and not just themselves," Tucker said.