Do U.S. transplant centers encourage emotionally related kidney donation?

Stimulated by a severe organ shortage and an improving ability to successfully transplant poorly matched donor-recipient pairs, many transplant centers are now willing to accept emotionally related (but genetically unrelated) people (e.g., spouses) as kidney donors. To see whether this practice is encouraged, a survey was mailed to all 209 adult renal transplant centers in the United States. Of the 154 (74%) responding centers, 90% said they accept emotionally related donors and 60% said they actually encourage this practice. Nearly 40% prefer spouses to cadavers, while only 21% prefer friends to cadavers. To further explore the degree to which emotionally related donation is encouraged, a second questionnaire was sent to a sample of centers (n = 51) that support this practice; 94% responded. While only 44% said they encourage the use of friends, nearly all of these preselected centers said they encourage spouses to donate. On the other hand, judging from their stated approach to this issue, only about half of these supportive centers seem to actively encourage emotionally related donation. These data suggest that, overall, at most only about one third of U.S. transplant centers actively encourage spousal donation and at most about one quarter encourage the use of friends. Consistent with these results, emotionally related donors contribute only a small fraction of all kidneys transplanted in this country. If the large potential contribution of emotionally related donors is ever to be realized, transplant centers must go beyond simply accepting such individuals and begin to actively encourage their participation. Medical and ethical considerations strongly support this proposal.