May 2007

 Emory Living Donor Transplant Program featured in AJC Article

In recognition of Mother's Day, the Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a feature on May 13 that focused on Georgia mothers who had donated either a kidney or a portion of their liver for transplant into their children. In all of the cases, the mothers' organs were removed at Emory University Hospital, then transported to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston for transplant. Surgeons of the division of transplantation of the Department of Surgery performed the procedures.

The article reported that approximately 45 percent of the transplants done in 2006 were made possible by living donors, with kidneys being the most frequently donated organ, followed by liver segments. Statistics compiled by the United Network of Organ Sharing for 2006 also showed that almost three-quarters of the 30 parents who donated livers and slightly more than half of the 111 who donated kidneys to pediatric patients in the US were mothers.

In the article, Dr. Thomas Heffron, director of liver transplantation at Emory and Egleston, said that if both parents are possible matches, physicians often choose the mother's organs because they are generally smaller and fit better.

"One of the things that impresses me most about moms is that there's no doubt they want to donate," he said. "When mothers give their children organs, I think there's a definite bond between them that lasts forever."

Dr. Heffron was a member of the surgical team that developed and conducted the first pediatric living related liver transplant in the US at the University of Chicago in 1989.

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