EUROPEAN KIDNEY PAIRED EXCHANGE PROGRAMME (EURO-KEP)

Project summary

Kidney Exchange Programs (KEPs) work by enabling patients with incompatible donors to swap with others in the same predicament. Swapping helps increase donations and reduces the time patients spend on waiting lists. A single non-directed donor might trigger a chain of transplants that benefit multiple recipients. And studies have shown that living-donor transplants boost patient survival to 90% after ten years, compared with an average of 75% amongst deceased-donor transplants. The average life expectancy for patients on dialysis currently stands at five to ten years*.