Hope for Kidney Patients

July 25, 2002, Associated Press

Kidneys transplanted from a cadaver keep working just as long as those taken from a brain-dead patient with a beating heart, scientists have found in a study that offers a promising way to ease a severe shortage of donor organs. Some doctors have long believed that if they wait until a person's heart has stopped to remove the kidneys, the organs will become damaged from lack of oxygen. In the first long-term study comparing the two approaches, doctors at the University Hospital Zurich followed nearly 250 transplant patients for up to 15 years and found nearly identical survival rates. The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.