The Los Angeles Transplant Society

For some 20 years a coordinated arrangement for sharing cadaver organs has been in place in Southern California. It's 11 transplant centers have performed 4,947 kidney transplants from 7,480 referred donors. There were 430 transplants done in 1985. The policy has been to keep one kidney and share the other within the pool. This has resulted in a better than average level of matching for HLA, and an overall better than average graft survival. The graft survival rates at the centers have been increasing yearly. Much of the improvement in graft survival resulted from the introduction of cyclosporine, but a summation of many factors contributed to a steady yearly increase. There are some 600 patients waiting for transplantation. With greater efforts in procurement of cadaver kidneys, especially from minorities, and continued collaboration between the transplant centers, it should become possible to transplant all those who are in need of a kidney.