February 13, 2025 • 9 mins
February 14th is a day for the heart, Valentine's Day, but it's also a day for other organs as well. It's National Organ Donor Day. We talk with Tampa General Hospital nephrologist Dr. Pranjal Jain about becoming a living organ donor. You may be eligible even if you think you aren't.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News. February fourteenth is,
of course Valentine's Day, but it's also National Donor Day.
Doctor Prangile Jane is a neurologist with Tampa General Hospital
and Florida Kidney Physicians. He's also the TGH Medical Director
of Living Donor Transplant and he joins us Now and
Beyond the News to talk about National Donor Day. Doctor Jane, Welcome,
(00:21):
Thanks Gardy well organ donation. Of course, we know that's important.
Many of us check the box for our organs to
be donated after we're gone, but people may not be
as aware of the process of becoming a living donor.
Could you talk with us about how that process works
and what are some of the organs that can be donated.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
So living donation can be done with the kidneys and
now with livers as well, and we've started doing the livers.
For the last one year, we've done a handful of
living liver donors, a very successful surgery outcome for the
liver patients. Going back to the kidneys, that's how the
(01:01):
field of transplantation actually started. The first transplant was done
between identical twins and both the donor and the recipient
did quite well, So that's really we embarked on the
field of transplantation. This was in the nineteen fifties up
north in the Northeast corridor, so living kidney donation has
been around for almost fifty to sixty years. However, we've
(01:27):
plateaued in the last fifteen years. It's the same amount
of living kidney donors that we've been doing for the
last fifteen years. And as you know, the number of
patients with kidney disease just keep growing exponentially, and there
is a demand and supply mismatched dig time. People who
are on dialysis with chronic kidney disease, the number one
(01:48):
reason they can get a transplant is because they die
out of other homorbidities or disease primarily, and they're unable
to get a transplant. And as good as dialysis is,
it not come close to a kidney transplant. Especially with
a living donor transplant, you know, the outcomes are very good.
So we definitely want to promote a living kidney donation.
(02:13):
There are a lot of misconceptions about it, and hopefully
I can answer some of those along as we go along.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, yes, yes, by all means is if you find
that's a factor as far as maybe the reason there's
a plateau in kidney donation, in organ donations, if you
could kind of expand on that, what are some of
the misconceptions that people have and how would you address them?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So first and foremost, you know, people make their own
assumptions in the sense that you know, I'm twenty one,
I don't think I'm eligible to donate. I'm seventy five,
I don't think I can donate. Oh I had cancer
thirty years ago, I don't think I can donate. So
we've made a lot of advances in this field, and
(02:58):
we've learned for the last sixty years that a lot
of things which were not true thirty years ago are
true now, meaning like we can take your kidneys, you know,
we we the UNOS certifies us to accept kidneys from
anybody above the age of eighteen and essentially no age limit.
(03:19):
We did a couple of donors, what above the age
of eighty did find? Of course, you know, we have
to check them out thoroughly, get a you know, good
medical background, psychological checkup. But apart from that, you know,
there are misconceptions like oh, I'm not his blood type,
the patient's blood type. So I did want to do
it and I cannot. And you know, we've circumvented this
(03:42):
problem now for the last twenty years as well, where
we have successfully participated in exchange kidney programs where you
may be compatible with another pair and their donor maybe
compatible with your intended recipient. So a lot of those
of medical factors, we're pushing the boundaries, ensuring that the
(04:04):
donors are safe as we push those boundaries gingerly. You know,
people with high blood pressure are also welcome to at
least fill out the intake and let us do the
work for you, let us assess your candidacy be rest
assured unless we check off all the boxes, dot all
our eyes, cross all our te's, you know, we do
(04:26):
not approve you as a living donor.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
AI.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
These are just some of the examples I can, you know,
go on and out.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
As an assigne before we get to our next question.
Has has it become easier to find matching donors? I
mean with I assume that there are online systems and
ways to find that match has has the process become
quicker and easier over the years. Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Absolutely. In fact, you know down there is a big
push for all the donors to be entered into this
exchange because what that really does is not only helps
your loved one, but also helps another pair. And you
know what more can be the gift of giving if
you can help come out with the surgery knowing that
you were able to help a couple of other people,
(05:10):
maybe even started Chaine, and we've had chains of twenty
five pairs listed and you probably were the one who
started the change and it was like a domino effect
and you know, everybody got transplanted because of you. So
it has become easier. There are thought party agencies doing
this work. The labs have become quicker. We can refine
(05:32):
the matching very well nowadays. So yes, the field has
definitely advanced a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I understand there are other new technologies that allow for
more transplants. If you could expand on that.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
A little bit, yeah, there are you know, we so
as our diseased donor kidneys, you know, we've been able
to match quite a bit. We've been able to pump
a lot of kidneys. What does pump mean? Pump mean
in layman terms? You know, you take out kidney from
a donor and for all these years we were just
putting it on ice, making sure there's no metabolism going on,
(06:06):
and we were transporting it on ice and then taking
it out of ice putting it in the intended recipe
and that's a lot of trauma for the kidney. Now
we are able to pump these kidneys with a pneumatic
or hydraulic pump with fluids, ensuring that the kidney is still,
so to say, alive outside of your body. And that
(06:26):
has shown that we can accept marginal organs, We can
accept organs which were previously discarded. And Tampa General and
our life and our OPO, the organ procurement organization Life Link,
is really pioneering this effort in terms of, you know,
nuancing these approaches with profusions pumping, you know, can we
(06:48):
do better? Can we maintain an environment which was there
in the body. So they're doing something called normalthermic regional perfusion,
which is really state of the art, and do some
studies on that, and it really we can use kidneys
from the West Coast, from anywhere in the country and
that has really increased the number of organs, decreased the
(07:13):
number of discarded organs and hence we were able to
you know, we as you know, we were the number
one transplant institute last year and we were able to
perform five hundred kidney transplants. And that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
If someone hearing us talk about this wants to do more,
become a donor or find out more about becoming a
living donor, how should they go about it?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, so you know, there are online links at our
website which makes it very easy. You can, you know,
in the comfort and leisure of your iPad, computer phone,
you know, just go to the Tampa General's website type
living donor form. It takes you to an online questionnaire
which has some hard stops, so you know you will
(07:55):
not proceed forward if you encounters one of those stops.
It's in English Spanish, and we have the old fashioned
way where you can call our center. There are numbers there.
There are other third party agencies which have the donor
intake form easily available, so you're leveraging technology English and
(08:17):
Spanish both and making it very easy. Once they fill
out and submit this form, we take it from there,
We run with it, We contact you and we make
sure you've understood the entire workup procedure. Along with the
donor surgery and the recovery and everything else.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And that's on the tgh dot org website. There's a
link to that for living donor transplant programs and just
follow the links from there. Doctor primegild Jane with the
TGH's kidney and prank threas transplant program the Tampa General
Hospital Transplant Institute ranked number one in the nation Florida
(08:54):
kidney physicians as well, and he's also the medical director
of Living donor Transplant at Tampa General hi Hospital. Doctor Jane,
thank you very much for joining us on beyond the News.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Happy to be built
Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News. February fourteenth is,
of course Valentine's Day, but it's also National Donor Day.
Doctor Prangile Jane is a neurologist with Tampa General Hospital
and Florida Kidney Physicians. He's also the TGH Medical Director
of Living Donor Transplant and he joins us Now and
Beyond the News to talk about National Donor Day. Doctor Jane, Welcome,
(00:21):
Thanks Gardy well organ donation. Of course, we know that's important.
Many of us check the box for our organs to
be donated after we're gone, but people may not be
as aware of the process of becoming a living donor.
Could you talk with us about how that process works
and what are some of the organs that can be donated.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
So living donation can be done with the kidneys and
now with livers as well, and we've started doing the livers.
For the last one year, we've done a handful of
living liver donors, a very successful surgery outcome for the
liver patients. Going back to the kidneys, that's how the
(01:01):
field of transplantation actually started. The first transplant was done
between identical twins and both the donor and the recipient
did quite well, So that's really we embarked on the
field of transplantation. This was in the nineteen fifties up
north in the Northeast corridor, so living kidney donation has
been around for almost fifty to sixty years. However, we've
(01:27):
plateaued in the last fifteen years. It's the same amount
of living kidney donors that we've been doing for the
last fifteen years. And as you know, the number of
patients with kidney disease just keep growing exponentially, and there
is a demand and supply mismatched dig time. People who
are on dialysis with chronic kidney disease, the number one
(01:48):
reason they can get a transplant is because they die
out of other homorbidities or disease primarily, and they're unable
to get a transplant. And as good as dialysis is,
it not come close to a kidney transplant. Especially with
a living donor transplant, you know, the outcomes are very good.
So we definitely want to promote a living kidney donation.
(02:13):
There are a lot of misconceptions about it, and hopefully
I can answer some of those along as we go along.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, yes, yes, by all means is if you find
that's a factor as far as maybe the reason there's
a plateau in kidney donation, in organ donations, if you
could kind of expand on that, what are some of
the misconceptions that people have and how would you address them?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So first and foremost, you know, people make their own
assumptions in the sense that you know, I'm twenty one,
I don't think I'm eligible to donate. I'm seventy five,
I don't think I can donate. Oh I had cancer
thirty years ago, I don't think I can donate. So
we've made a lot of advances in this field, and
(02:58):
we've learned for the last sixty years that a lot
of things which were not true thirty years ago are
true now, meaning like we can take your kidneys, you know,
we we the UNOS certifies us to accept kidneys from
anybody above the age of eighteen and essentially no age limit.
(03:19):
We did a couple of donors, what above the age
of eighty did find? Of course, you know, we have
to check them out thoroughly, get a you know, good
medical background, psychological checkup. But apart from that, you know,
there are misconceptions like oh, I'm not his blood type,
the patient's blood type. So I did want to do
it and I cannot. And you know, we've circumvented this
(03:42):
problem now for the last twenty years as well, where
we have successfully participated in exchange kidney programs where you
may be compatible with another pair and their donor maybe
compatible with your intended recipient. So a lot of those
of medical factors, we're pushing the boundaries, ensuring that the
(04:04):
donors are safe as we push those boundaries gingerly. You know,
people with high blood pressure are also welcome to at
least fill out the intake and let us do the
work for you, let us assess your candidacy be rest
assured unless we check off all the boxes, dot all
our eyes, cross all our te's, you know, we do
(04:26):
not approve you as a living donor.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
AI.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
These are just some of the examples I can, you know,
go on and out.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
As an assigne before we get to our next question.
Has has it become easier to find matching donors? I
mean with I assume that there are online systems and
ways to find that match has has the process become
quicker and easier over the years. Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Absolutely. In fact, you know down there is a big
push for all the donors to be entered into this
exchange because what that really does is not only helps
your loved one, but also helps another pair. And you
know what more can be the gift of giving if
you can help come out with the surgery knowing that
you were able to help a couple of other people,
(05:10):
maybe even started Chaine, and we've had chains of twenty
five pairs listed and you probably were the one who
started the change and it was like a domino effect
and you know, everybody got transplanted because of you. So
it has become easier. There are thought party agencies doing
this work. The labs have become quicker. We can refine
(05:32):
the matching very well nowadays. So yes, the field has
definitely advanced a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I understand there are other new technologies that allow for
more transplants. If you could expand on that.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
A little bit, yeah, there are you know, we so
as our diseased donor kidneys, you know, we've been able
to match quite a bit. We've been able to pump
a lot of kidneys. What does pump mean? Pump mean
in layman terms? You know, you take out kidney from
a donor and for all these years we were just
putting it on ice, making sure there's no metabolism going on,
(06:06):
and we were transporting it on ice and then taking
it out of ice putting it in the intended recipe
and that's a lot of trauma for the kidney. Now
we are able to pump these kidneys with a pneumatic
or hydraulic pump with fluids, ensuring that the kidney is still,
so to say, alive outside of your body. And that
(06:26):
has shown that we can accept marginal organs, We can
accept organs which were previously discarded. And Tampa General and
our life and our OPO, the organ procurement organization Life Link,
is really pioneering this effort in terms of, you know,
nuancing these approaches with profusions pumping, you know, can we
(06:48):
do better? Can we maintain an environment which was there
in the body. So they're doing something called normalthermic regional perfusion,
which is really state of the art, and do some
studies on that, and it really we can use kidneys
from the West Coast, from anywhere in the country and
that has really increased the number of organs, decreased the
(07:13):
number of discarded organs and hence we were able to
you know, we as you know, we were the number
one transplant institute last year and we were able to
perform five hundred kidney transplants. And that's a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
If someone hearing us talk about this wants to do more,
become a donor or find out more about becoming a
living donor, how should they go about it?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, so you know, there are online links at our
website which makes it very easy. You can, you know,
in the comfort and leisure of your iPad, computer phone,
you know, just go to the Tampa General's website type
living donor form. It takes you to an online questionnaire
which has some hard stops, so you know you will
(07:55):
not proceed forward if you encounters one of those stops.
It's in English Spanish, and we have the old fashioned
way where you can call our center. There are numbers there.
There are other third party agencies which have the donor
intake form easily available, so you're leveraging technology English and
(08:17):
Spanish both and making it very easy. Once they fill
out and submit this form, we take it from there,
We run with it, We contact you and we make
sure you've understood the entire workup procedure. Along with the
donor surgery and the recovery and everything else.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And that's on the tgh dot org website. There's a
link to that for living donor transplant programs and just
follow the links from there. Doctor primegild Jane with the
TGH's kidney and prank threas transplant program the Tampa General
Hospital Transplant Institute ranked number one in the nation Florida
(08:54):
kidney physicians as well, and he's also the medical director
of Living donor Transplant at Tampa General hi Hospital. Doctor Jane,
thank you very much for joining us on beyond the News.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Happy to be built
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