One of the most powerful things about organ donation is the human desire to do good and save a life. By having the conversation and becoming a registered organ and tissue donor, we can leave a legacy and enable so many things to be accomplished through our gift of life.
 
During BeADonor Month, we heard how recipients were able to finish their degrees, have their first child, see their nephew graduate, become business owners, volunteer and travel the world. We heard from donors who were able to watch their children grow up, have another Christmas with their dad, know that they were the reason that someone else is alive today. We heard from a donor family that even in the darkest hours, the decision to donate a husband's organs, gave a heart to a father so his children could grow up with a dad. You can view some of these stories here.
 
This April we donned our green shirts and green pins to celebrate BeADonor Month, Green Shirt Day and NOTDAW. We painted our towns green and shared stories of transplant recipients, living donors, deceased donors and donor families. We came together as a community to spread hope, remember, acknowledge our grief and loss and share love and gratitude.  

Organ donation takes a team. From our resilient transplant patients and their caregivers, to our generous donors and donor families, thank you. To our transplant teams, the doctors, nurses, surgeons, admins, social workers, volunteers and community partners, none of this would be possible without you.

As we move forward in the months to come, we will hold tight to the powerful voices we heard and the momentum we built, to continue to improve access to living organ donation for people who need a lifesaving kidney or liver transplant, and those who want to give the extraordinary gift of life.
 
We hope you will join us on this journey. 
 
The Centre Team
@givelifeuhn 

In Case You Missed It

Welcome to Transplant Trivia! Play along with Len, Fadia, Heather and Andrea, and we promise you will learn something new and have fun along the way!
Join hosts, and living kidney transplant recipients, Jennen Johnson and Candice Coghlan, and their guests for a thoughtful, and at times tearful, NOTDAW discussion.

ACB Organ Health YouTube Channel Raises Awareness

The patients and creatives behind the ACB Organ Health YouTube Channel continue to produce content that raises awareness of organ donation and highlights the transplant journeys of people from the African, Caribbean and Black communities. Below are two public service announcements produced by ACB Organ Health YouTube Channel creative Christopher Smith, and released during NOTDAW. Share the content and help promote the channel to patients and professionals - the URL is bit.ly/ACBorganhealth. If you have suggestions for topics or speakers, would like to volunteer or join the advisory committee, please email acborganhealth@gmail.com. 


This public service announcement explores the gap between support for organ donation and donor registration.
 
This educational spot walks the viewer through beadonor.ca, the online registration process in Ontario. 
 
Living donor Andrew Christie talks about what motivated him to become a living organ donor just a few weeks after getting married. For the full story, including more info the Living Liver Donor Program, click here.
Liver disease takes the lives of many thousands, both young and old. Dr. Bhat will explain the many stages of liver disease, the role of liver transplantation and more.

Ongoing Education Sessions 
Free online information sessions presented by Centre for Living Organ Donation
  • 1st Tuesday of the Month: Information for Potential Living Kidney Donors 
  • 2nd Tuesday of the Month: Finding a Living Donor (registrants will be able to access additional resources including Having Your Donor Find You, a free self-paced video series)
  • 3rd Tuesday of the Month: Financial Resources for Living Donors (PRELOD and other provincial reimbursement programs, employer support and more)
  • 4thTuesday of the Month: Information for Potential Living Liver Donors

Writing Your Transplant Story

Partner Events & Resources

Email activelivingbrampton@gmail.com to register

Patient Library Corner

Tech Tips Video Series
This series of short videos from Patient & Family Learning Centres helps with basic digital skills. Each video is under three minutes long, in plain language, and moderately paced. 
Topics include:


RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Below are links to selected articles on living organ donation and transplantation published recently. If you have a suggestion email us.

Apolipoprotein L1 Opinions of African American Living Kidney Donors, Kidney Transplant Patients, and Nonpatients  Survey of 331 African American potential and former living kidney donors, kidney transplant candidates and recipients, and nonpatients at three US transplant programs found strong support for testing for the ApoL1 variant which is associated with higher lifetime risk of kidney failure, shorter graft survival and worse post-donation kidney function among African Americans.

Development and Validation of an Ensemble Machine Learning Framework for Detection of All-Cause Advanced Hepatic Fibrosis: A Retrospective Cohort Study Machine learning algorithm using routinely collected data could identify patients at high-risk of advanced hepatic fibrosis, and cirrhosis among patients with chronic liver disease, and enable earlier treatment.

Does Pre-Operative Counselling of the Donor Improve Immediate and Short-term Outcomes after Living Liver Donation? - A Review of the Literature and Expert Panel Recommendations Systematic review concludes that living donors that received pre-operative counselling had fewer physical symptoms post donation, lower rates of fatigue, lower rates of pain, shorter recovery times and fewer unexpected medical problems, and less anxiety post donation.

Health System Barriers and Facilitators to Living Donor Kidney Transplantation: A Qualitative Case Study in British Columbia Identifies five facilitators of high-performing living donor kidney transplantation system: a centralized infrastructure, a mandate for timely intervention, an equitable funding model, a commitment to collaboration and cultivating distributed expertise. Key health system barriers include: divided accountability structures, disconnected care processes, missed training opportunities, inequitable access by region and financial burden for donors and recipients.

Is it Safe to Administer Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy to Patients Undergoing Hepatectomy for Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma? ACS-NSQIP Propensity-Matched Analysis Based on 1508 patients who underwent hepatectomy for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, UHN study concluded that neoadjuvant chemotherapy can be administered without increasing the risk of 30-day complications or post-operative hospital length of stay.

Optimizing Pre-donation Physiologic Evaluation for Enhanced Recovery After Living Liver Donation - Systematic Review and Multidisciplinary Expert Panel Recommendations Recommends abbreviated testing for all candidates and comprehensive testing for high risk candidates. Notes older age is not a contraindication for liver donation and insufficient evidence for pre-donation BMI cut-off.

Call for Research Participants

Click to find out more
Mandarin
Cantonese

The Centre for Living Organ Donation at UHN
Toronto General Hospital | Ajmera Transplant Centre
585 University Ave, 9 MaRS-9115, Toronto, ON M5G 2N2 Canada
livingorgandonation@uhn.ca  | 416-340-5400
www.livingorgandonation.ca

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