Kidneys from cardiac-death patients perform as well as those from brain-dead patients

The number of people on the kidney transplant waiting list in the UK continues to increase with over 7000 patients currently waiting for transplant and only 1600 kidney transplants performed from deceased donors each year. Until recently, most donated kidneys came from donors who were brain dead -meaning people whose hearts were still beating but had suffered brain-stem death. However the number of these donors has fallen over the last decade, probably due to improvements in the treatment of head injuries and a reduction in deaths on the road. As a result there has been a corresponding surge in the number of cardiac-death donors (non-beating heart donors), rising from 3% of all donations in 2000 to 32% in 2009.

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