CanadianCindyB

I have some important news to share.  All blood types can now apply to be a living liver donor towards our baby.  Previously only B or O could apply, and they are now opening it up to A and AB donors.  Positive/negative blood type does not matter. This is called "ABO incompatible matching", and is not typically done.  Toronto has done it with adults, but never with children.  When we met with the transplant team a couple of weeks ago, they had mentioned that they were going to add in the possibility of using ABO incompatible livers from cadavers if they came in to bring up the odds of finding a liver.  This is only done in rare cases.  Our next question to them automatically became, "If you are willing to do that, what about incompatible blood type living donors?"  They mentioned that they had not done this at Sick Kids before, but would talk it over with the living donor co-ordinators at Toronto General as well as the main surgeon (who was in surgery during our l

 Some random facts about liver transplant: There are typically between 20 and 30 children on the waiting list for a liver at a time just at Toronto Sick Kids hospital. Toronto and London are the two transplant centres in Ontario. No cadaver livers came into Sick Kids hospital during July or August this year, but two became available this past weekend resulting in transplants (including the other OTC case I wrote about earlier). The waiting period for a cadaver liver is very random. The first living donor transplant in Toronto was performed in 1996. Toronto is the largest, most experienced living donor transplant centre in North America. The list for people needing transplants in Ontario is maintained by the Trillium Gift of Life program.  They maintain a publicly accessible list that tells you how many people in Ontario are on the waiting list for organs at a time.  At time of writing this, there are 235 people in Ontario waiting for a liver transplant (both adults a