Handbook of Healthcare Analytics

9 Organ Transplantation*

Barış Ata¹, John J. Friedewald², and A. Cem Randa¹

¹University of Chicago

²Northwestern University

9.1 Introduction

The first successful solid organ transplantation was done in 1954 between identical twins (Merrill et al., 1956). With the discovery and rapid development of immunosuppressive drugs (Halloran, 2004), organ transplantation became widely available. These outstanding achievements changed the course of treatment of many end stage diseases and brought hope to countless patients suffering from them.

Solid organ transplantation can be carried out using organs from either living or deceased donors. The former is preferred because the graft failure risk of the organ is lower in that case (Trotter et al., 2002). At the same time, a living donor needs to continue having a productive life after the organ donation. Kidney transplants are the primary example of living‐donor transplants because the nephrological functions of the human body can be handled by one kidney (Johnson et al., 1999). Living‐donor partial liver transplants are another example (though they are much less common) because the liver itself is regenerative (Hashikura et al., 2002).

Living organ donation occurs between a recipient and a consenting (living) donor. The donor and the recipient are typically supposed to be biologically or emotionally related in this situation, and any type of monetary transactions are strictly prohibited by the National Organ Transplantation Act (NOTA, ...