Glossary
When you donate to someone you don’t know. If you are an altruistic kidney donor, your kidney will go to the best-matched person on the transplant waiting list. You won’t find out who gets your kidney.
Matching. When two things are compatible, they match each other or work well together.
A treatment for kidney disease that cleans your blood. There are two types of dialysis: haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.
When you donate your kidney to a particular person. Only that person can get your kidney.
The stage when the kidneys are so damaged they can’t recover. If you have end-stage kidney disease, you need dialysis or a kidney transplant to stay alive.
The team that is involved in your kidney transplant. This team will include your kidney doctor and your transplant co-ordinator as well as other health professionals who work with kidneys.
Keyhole surgery. In this type of surgery, several smaller incisions (cuts) are made instead of a single large incision. Laparoscopic surgery is less painful, and the patient has a faster recovery time and less scarring than if they had had one big incision.
This is the same as altruistic donation.
A transplant that happens before starting dialysis. Pre-emptive transplants usually have better outcomes for the recipient than having a transplant after starting dialysis.
The medical word meaning kidney.
Kidney disease.