Compatible Blood Types

Kidney donors must have a compatible blood type with the recipient. In living donation, the following blood types are compatible:

• Donors with blood type A... can donate to recipients with blood types A and AB
• Donors with blood type B... can donate to recipients with blood types B and AB
• Donors with blood type AB... can donate to recipients with blood type AB only
• Donors with blood type O... can donate to recipients with blood types A, B, AB and O (O is the universal donor: donors with O blood are compatible with any other blood type)

So,

• Recipients with blood type O... can receive a kidney from blood type O only
• Recipients with blood type A... can receive a kidney from blood types A and O
• Recipients with blood type B... can receive a kidney from blood types B and O
• Recipients with blood type AB... can receive a kidney from blood types A, B, AB and O (AB is the universal recipient: recipients with AB blood are compatible with any other blood type)

Donating Blood by Compatible Type:

MatchingDonors.com Paired Exchange Program

This Program for Donor/Recipient Pairs with Incompatible Blood Types

MatchingDonors.com has the world’s largest database of available altruistic incompatible donors. 

People with kidney failure who have a willing donor (friend, family member etc…) whose blood type is not compatible may be able to take part in a Paired Kidney Exchange Program. How it works is, if a donor and patient can be found who have the opposite blood type incompatibility, kidneys can be exchanged between the two pairs and two compatible live donor transplants are possible. Using MatchingDonors.com to find a direct altruistic donor is usually the easiest way to find a donor, but we want you to have as many options as possible to find your match so we are now also offering, at no additional charge, our paired exchange program where you can also search for a suitable exchange pair.

MatchingDonors.com now has the world’s largest database of available altruistic incompatible donors.  The more donors and patients in the database the greater the chance of identifying an exchange pair. We have new donors signing up about just about everyday willing to be involved in an incompatible paired exchange.  Some of these donors have a patient already associated with them and some are willing to help ant patient in a paired exchange.

We have had a number of patients that have found an incompatible donor who then became their donor for a kidney exchange program. So, with MatchingDonors.com you don’t even have to bring in your own incompatible donor (friend or family member)  you can find an altruistic incompatible donor that would be willing to donate to some else to save your life.

Kidney Paired Donation is a program which assists donor/patient pairs who are incompatible or poorly matched with each other to find another donor/patient pair(s) with whom they can exchange kidneys to enable a more favorable compatibility and allow a transplant to take place.

Every donor and patient who is interested in exchanging kidneys is entered into the MatchingDonors.com database with their blood type along with their HLA typing- if available. The matching search agent is run on a daily basis, and potential matches are identified along with your regular search agent results list.
When a potential incompatible pair is identified both the donor and patient will receive a tissue typing kit in the mail with blood tubes in it. You will then get a blood drawn at your doctor’s office and sent back to the transplant center.  There will be instructions with the kit that will tell you that a potential exchange pair has been identified and that you should have your blood drawn on the date specified in the letter. This blood is used to crossmatch you with the exchange donor/ patient.

Every donor is evaluated according to standard medical practice. Each donor must go through a battery of tests and consults prior to being accepted into the program. Consideration is given to a matched age (within 10 years) between donors. Patient/ donor pairs always have the option of declining offers.

Blood types of the donor/patient pair.
If the patient is of the ‘O’ blood type, they require an ‘O’ donor.  ‘O’ donors are universal donors and can give to anyone. Therefore, the available ‘O’ donors in the KPD program are those that are unable to give to their patient because the patient is sensitized. Therefore, it will be more difficult to find a compatible donor for the sensitized patient and the blood-type incompatible ‘O’ patient.

Multiple donor/patient pairs in the database.
The transplant center will try to optimize the number of transplants that can take place to help as many patients as possible. Therefore, there could be a little as 2 pairs involved to as many as 5 or more pairs involved. MatchingDonors has been involved in a number of these types of incompatible paired exchange kidney transplants.