Living donors are individuals who, while alive, donate an organ or part of an organ for transplantation into another person. The kidney is the most frequently donated organ from living donors, because a healthy person can usually maintain normal function with one kidney, and segments of other organs, including the l…
Living donors are individuals who, while alive, donate an organ or part of an organ for transplantation into another person. The kidney is the most frequently donated organ from living donors, because a healthy person can usually maintain normal function with one kidney, and segments of other organs, including the lung, may also be donated in selected circumstances. Living donation offers important advantages over donation after death: it expands the supply of organs, often shortens waiting time, allows transplantation to be scheduled electively, and is generally associated with better graft survival and function, in part because the time the organ spends without blood supply is minimised. Intraoperative factors such as donor haemodynamics can nonetheless influence early graft performance, including the risk of delayed function in the recipient. Living donation raises distinctive ethical and policy questions, since a healthy person undergoes surgery for another's benefit; these include rigorous evaluation of donor suitability, informed and voluntary consent, protection of donor health and follow-up care, and debate over financial considerations such as donor health insurance and the prohibition of organ sale. The willingness of the public and of health professionals to support donation, together with careful immunological matching and individualised post-transplant care, shapes outcomes. Living donation is therefore studied at the intersection of surgery, immunology, ethics, and health policy.
6 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
The 6 articles above have been cited 10 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Living Donors, linking to each citing work.