Does any one know how many people can actually benefit from a kidney transplant in the U.S.? I'm sorry to say, the answer is no! There is an exact number of people registered on the waiting list, but if you are not registered on the list (if for example, you cannot find a transplant center willing to accept you) you are not counted even though you may desperately need a transplant to elongate your life!
Often, a problem cannot be dealt with appropriately until the problem is identified and the scope of the problem understood. There is a severe shortage of organs available for transplantation in general. I will only deal with the acute shortage of kidneys for the time being.
According to the OPTN, or Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (which is affiliated with the the DHHS, or the Department of Health and Human Service's HRSA, or Health Resources and Services Administration) there are only 88,392 individuals awaiting a kidney transplant on their waiting list. (Accessed from http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/latestData/rptData.asp
based on OPTN data as of April 29, 2011)
According to the USRDS, or the United States Renal Data System, as of 6/30/2010 there were 591,642 people in the U.S. with ESRD. See here
That means there are over 500,000 people with ESRD who are not on the kidney transplant waiting list!!! Most of these people are on dialysis to keep them alive.
People who receive transplants live substantially longer than those on dialysis.
See here for more specific data on the subject.
So why doesn't the kidney transplant waiting list more accurately reflect the number of people who could benefit from transplants?
I'll try to partially answer that in another post.
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