Changing Kidney Blood Type May Boost Transplants

 by Ashnah Elanchcheliyan

Researchers have found that altering the blood type of donor kidneys could potentially increase the supply of the organs for transplant. This will be particularly helpful to minority groups, whose blood group is often harder to match. For example, a kidney from a person with blood group A cannot be given to a person with blood group B. However, changing the blood group of a kidney to the universal type O, will mean it can be transplanted into any patient.

Black and other ethnic minority groups often have to wait a year or longer for a transplant compared to white patients, as they are more likely to have the rarer B-type blood group. The rate of organ donation is also significantly lower in those populations. In 2020 / 21, just over 9% of total organ donations came from black and other minority ethnic donors – people from these communities make up 33% of the kidney transplant waiting list.

In order to preserve a kidney, scientists at the University of Cambridge were able to pump blood infused with an enzyme through a donor kidney using a normothermic perfusion machine. The blood-type markers that line the organ's blood vessels are removed by the enzyme, essentially converting the organ's blood type to O. The procedure only took a few hours, after being carried out successfully on three donor kidneys. Before the kidney is transplanted into a patient, the next stage is to observe how the kidneys respond to a normal supply of blood from their new blood type. This can again be tested using a machine.