Program facilitating kidney transplants for hardest-to-match patients reaches milestone

Arnold Dysart shakes hands with Dr. Peter Nickerson. — *Arnold Dysart (left) and Dr. Peter Nickerson, one of the doctor’s who spearheaded the program, shake hands after Arnold becomes the first Highly Sensitized Patient transplant recipient.*

A “highly sensitized” patient is one who has a very high level of antibodies that react to foreign tissue. It’s a possible outcome of a previous organ transplant; others are highly sensitized because they’ve developed antibodies during pregnancy, or in response to blood transfusions.

“These three populations of patients, especially if they have a broad degree of sensitization, often can’t find a donor in their province,” Dr. Nickerson, a Manitoba physician who has cared for highly sensitized patients. says “To really maximize the chance of them getting a transplant, you need to have access to the entire kidney donor pool in the country.”

That access is what’s provided by the Highly Sensitized Patient program, which Dr. Nickerson helped launch in 2013. It is a national organ sharing program operated by Canadian Blood Services in collaboration with all provincial donation and transplant programs.

When the Highly Sensitized Patient program launched, people who had been waiting for almost two decades started qualifying for kidney transplants.

“Now we have patients who are highly sensitized and they’re not waiting 16 years anymore,” Dr. Nickerson says. “They’re coming onto the list and they’re getting off the list. They have wait times now that are not much different than patients who are not sensitized. That’s creating equity.”

For Arnold Dysart, the first recipient through this program, his kidney made the long journey from the east coast to his home province of Manitoba, and he is forever grateful to have received it.

“I wish I had the ability to contact the family of my donor because I would speak from the heart,” Arnold says. “I would probably do a lot of crying from happiness and let them know that they helped me out with another lease on life.”

These 1,000 kidney transplants represent 1,000 people, like Arnold, who would likely never have found matches within their own provinces.

The highly sensitized patient program could not exist without the generosity of donors and their families. Partners for Life teams can also support patients in need of lifesaving organ and tissue transplants by sharing resources about this important part of Canada’s Lifeline within their communities and encouraging members to register their intent to become an organ donor.

To learn more about the life-changing impact of organ donors through the Highly Sensitized Patient program, visit blood.ca/HSP1000.