Question about blood type for transplant...

Hi!

Just curious, do certain blood types tend to wait longer for a donor offer?

My mom is type "O" and curious if she has a longer wait because of this. I am aware many factors play into whether you can be offered an organ (size, blood type, etc).

Any insight?
Thanks.

Type O is the most common blood type. Therefore, there will be more type O livers available. Another common type is A. The others tend to be more rare and will have longer waits.

Hugs,
Connie

@ Sandia...I am trying to breath...its just so difficult. I am worried about my mother, 24/7...it is all I can focus on. I stress and am scared of the HCC spreading.

@ Connie...I am hoping bc my mom blood type O, her wait will not be too long. My mom was diagnosed with HCC in June...its now March. It has been 9 months. I pray every day for her to get an offer.

@ lavendar...type O is rare? Oh no...doesn't that mean a longer wait? So confused...Connie said its more common?

Post Edited (Worried daughter2) : 3/9/2013 6:15:18 PM (GMT-7)

I think, in my own mind at least, that blood type, while a factor to determine who gets which liver, is essentially immaterial. One is more common, another less common.

But by what logic would not the donor pool and transplant pool be the same...more needing the common type and fewer needing the less common type....it would balance out.

Unless there is some new factor I don' t know about...that AB Neg motorcycle drivers are more likely to wear helmets than O positive, for example. Which, of course, is not true.

I think this works out how it is supposed to work out.

The docs know that some patients are more likely to survive the surgery and have a long positive outcome....and they put those folks at the top of the list. Folks with several advanced conditions are less likely to survive the surgery and survive long term. Not to be mean, but they triage the livers for the most positive outcomes possible.

The centers are evaluated on their successful surgical rates and successful 1 and 5 year survival statistics, and those are available online.

Again, I think this works out how it is supposed to work out...that is what I told myself every day that Mike waited for an organ. His prayers were answered May 1, 2011. And so far, so good. He has an anniversary coming up....but....he is not young or well again. He is alive and doing pretty well. He still has Hep C and he still has cardiac and kidney problems. So...for how long....who knows.

Carol

Post Edited By Moderator (hep93) : 3/9/2013 8:06:27 PM (GMT-7)

MELD score is a lot of it, but patients need to be sick, but not too sick to survive and in my case, size had something to do with my transplant. When the TC called me that morning, a doctor got on the phone to ask how much I weighed; it was 150. They called me back as I was on my way there to say I was jumped from being #3 in line, to #1. My blood type is B+, which is around 8-9% of the population. I was told that B+ people could accept a liver from other blood types, though at MGH, they don't do that. I was also told that transplantation for rare blood types are very hard to get.

The excluding factors include serious heart problems, uncontrolled diabetes or high blood pressure, mental problems, etc. That is why they do the thorough testing, etc., in the pre-transplant evaluation. It's a balancing act. They want someone who is sick enough to need a new liver, but also well enough to survive the surgery with few complications. But that's not always what happens. Aside from hep C and liver cancer, I was fundamentally healthy. But post transplant, I had a lot of complications and hep C is wrecking my new liver.. But I'm still here, 16 mos. post transplant.

WD, good to know that your mom is being scanned frequently. Did she have a chemoembolization to shrink her HCC from 2 cm to 1.4?

And yes, David had a transplant...about 3 years ago.

Hugs,
Connie

Hi Connie.

My mom had to wait until her lesion was 2cm in order to get the exception points. In June her lesion was 9mm...then in November it was 2cm so that's when she got the exception points (meld jumped from 12 to 22) and that's when they could start treatment. She had her first chemo embolization in November...had CT scan 2 weeks later then an MRI, 2 weeks after that. Mri showed that about 90% of the lesion was treated, so then she had another chemo embolization in January with a CT scan 2 weeks following the embolization, and then an MRI 2 weeks after the CT. As far as I know, there is very, very minimal active enhancementof the lesion.

Connie...how are you feeling? Did your Hep C come back after transplant? Did you have a standard donor liver or was it an extended donor liver?

Great questions!!   Way back it seemed like you were asking questions or had concerns about transmission of Hep C. Read up on standard precautions for blood borne pathogens. Should cover it. It's a difficult time period with the waiting. In the end the transplant team will weigh all the variables and the one that weighs in the heaviest may be one you haven't even thought about. Deep breaths. Keep the questions coming. We care. Sandia

WD, I answered some of your questions in my above post. The hep C came back a month after transplant. I am very tired all the time from the hep C.

I was told that I should agree to a hep C liver, if wait would be too long for a good liver. However, they changed their stance on that and decided I should only have a good liver. Mayo never gave much importance to viral loads. I know that one before transplant was 68,000 and one after transplant was 8 million. They haven't done VL for months.

Due to the hep C fatigue, I require 10-12 hours of sleep a night. Otherwise, I'm okay. Due to osteoarthritis, I have a lot of bone pain. I need surgery on my thumbs and somewhere in the future I'll need a knee replacement. I've already had bilateral hip replacement with 3 revisions. I have neck pain from a whiplash injury decades ago. But the bone problems have nothing to do with hep C or my transplant.

Hugs,
Connie

Connie,
Pretty soon, you're going to be mostly stainless steel, with a liver thrown in.

Show off...

Hope everyone is doing well today.

no thanks, i'll take the divorce

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