Medical advances lead to living donor procedure

SF GATE | Ryan Trares
FRANKLIN, Ind. (AP) — When Kelly Kinkade was told she needed a liver transplant, she assumed she would be placed on a list.

She would wait until someone with similar blood type and body size died, and then be contacted for surgery.

But a second option also existed.

As medical technology has advanced in the past 20 years, living-donor liver donations have increased. Surgeons can take a portion of the organ from a healthy person and implant it in the recipient. It offers an alternative for patients such as Kinkade, who would otherwise have to wait up to 10 years for a liver.

But because it's relatively new, few people are aware that they could provide a new life for those suffering from liver failure.

"People don't realize that it's possible. You hear so much about the other potential transplants," Kinkade told the Daily Journal (http://bit.ly/1fMsVy0 ). "There are probably a lot of people who have the heart to help others, but they don't know that they have the opportunity."
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"You have the power to SAVE lives."
To register as a donor in California:
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org
Outside California:
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.