BELL COUNTY, Texas — A three-way transplant chain involving six people across three hospitals recently took place in Texas, and it's a sign of how doctors are now taking a different approach to kidney transplants and finding living donors.
The transplant chain was made possible through Baylor Scott & White Health's partnership with three of it's Texas hospitals.
These hospitals include Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Temple, Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas and Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth.
While these three-way chains are considered rare, Surgical Director for Baylor Scott & White Temple Dr. Debra Doherty said these transplants could make a dramatic difference in how many people are waiting for kidneys.
"I think that's the beauty of it is that we're not having to rely on sending our kidneys across the country," she said. "We all know that getting kidneys in as fast as possible -- they're going to work better and they're going to work faster. This is a game changer because it makes it easy for us and it makes it possible to do more matches."
There are around 90,000 people in the United States waiting for a kidney transplant, according to Dr. Doherty.
Daniel Madron, who was diagnosed with a polycystic kidney when he was in his 30s, was on dialysis for years.
"I started to accept my fate," he told Baylor Scott and White Health.
However, one day Madron got a call that he had been waiting for. It wasn't that he was getting a kidney transplant, but it was from a living donor.
"I get emotional still," Madron added. "You couldn't ask for better kidney. I knew the second they put it in. It's so life changing."
Madron would be part of a historic three-way paired Texas based kidney chain. His new kidney came from a woman in North Texas whose husband needed a transplant as well.
They weren't a match, so that husband received a kidney from a woman also in North Texas who tried to donate to a friend.
That friend received a kidney from Donor Erica Turner who decided to become an altruistic donor, offering one of her kidneys to a stranger. She was the one who started the chain.
The Living Donor Program created by Baylor Scott & White is helping people find matches for transplants faster than ever before, and programs like this can make larger transplant chains more common.
According to Baylor Scott & White, patients receiving living donor kidney transplants live longer, recover faster and have a better quality of life.
"If we had 90,000 people who were as generous as the woman who started this chain and the other people involved the donors -- we'd wipe out the waiting list," Dr. Doherty said.
These donors could be family members, friends or even strangers. They just have to be healthy and willing to lend a helping hand.
To learn more information about the Living Donor Program, visit here.