Kidney Transplants: Health Story

Aired on Superstation WGN
Saturday, May 21 and August 20, 2005
Show 213

Lee Walters' wife Tamera says, "I fell in love with Lee's clam chowder and then I fell in love with him." Shortly after they were married his kidneys failed. And even though Lee was lucky enough to receive a kidney donation from his sister, eight years later he felt tired and lethargic and knew his new kidney was also failing. Lee started dialysis and waited for another transplant. "I felt like a single mother having to do everything myself," says Tamara. Seventeen patients die every day waiting for a kidney transplant. The average wait is 10-20 years. Dr. Stanley Jordan of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA says, "Roughly 30 percent of patients needing a kidney have high levels of antibodies – they are highly sensitized – and will destroy a donated kidney. This happens mainly to those who have had a previous transplant or blood transfusions." A new therapy, the infusion of intravenous immunoglobulin or IVIG, used for immune system disorders was found to prevent patients' bodies from rejecting transplants. "It's the first successful therapy. The life restoring capacity of this drug gives people back their lives," says Dr. Jordan. Using IVIG, Lee has not rejected his new kidney which was donated by his wife. "I'm lucky I have a wife who made the ultimate sacrifice," says Lee.