GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Kidney Transplant Center at Mercy Health has been in our community for nearly 50 years. In that time the team has performed more than 2,800 kidney transplants.
Surgical Director, Dr. Joel Stracke, said the most common reasons someone would need a kidney transplant is end-stage Kidney Disease caused by Diabetes or high blood pressure, Polycystic Kidney Disease or other inherited disorders, and Lupus and other diseases of the immune system.
Dr. Stracke shared some highlights of the Kidney Transplant Program:
- Of the more than 2,800 transplants, 1,100 of the kidneys came from living donors.
- On average, the team completes 80-100 transplants a year. The most they’ve completed in one year is 137 transplants.
- Everything is in one location at the Saint Mary’s Campus, from pre- op appointments to surgery and follow up appointments.
- The Center currently has 300 patients on their wait list.
- There are deceased and living donor options.
- The Center works closely with Donate Life.
- They are the first and only center in Michigan to participate in the National Kidney Registry, which is the largest paired donation program in the world.
Participating in this program has saved countless lives of many patients and provided a unique opportunity for their living donors and recipients.
Dr. Stracke said paired donation can be a great option if a patient has an incompatible donor or if they would prefer to find a better match. He described a paired donation as a sort of kidney swap.
“In kidney paired exchange, you have a donor willing to donate a kidney on your behalf, but you are incompatible with the donor or want to try to find a better match. With kidney paired exchange, your donor will donate their kidney to another recipient in exchange for a compatible kidney for you,” said Dr. Stracke.
To learn more about the Mercy Health Kidney Transplant Program, visit www.MercyHealth.com/Kidney-Transplant.
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