JoAnn and William Breckenridge, first international paired kidney donor, The Transplant Center at Jewish Hospital, part of KentuckyOne Health, helped make medical history as part of the first international paired kidney donor exchange in America, with the help of the Alliance for Paired Donation.
In a paired kidney donation, a donor who is incompatible with his or her designated recipient promises to donate a kidney to a stranger; this qualifies their designee to receive a compatible kidney from another stranger. JoAnn Breckenridge of Elizabethtown received a kidney transplant at Jewish Hospital on April 19 as a result of first international paired donation. Her husband, William, donated a kidney on May 1 to help another individual and continue the chain.
The chain that gave JoAnn Breckenridge a new kidney began when a 31-year-old Oklahoma woman donated her kidney to Michalis Helmis of Greece. His wife, Theodora (Dora) Papaioannou-Helmis, had to campaign relentlessly to change a Greek law that made it possible for a first- or second-degree relative to legally donate a kidney to a recipient in Greece. The law, meant to prevent a black market in organ harvesting, had the unintended consequence of making paired kidney donation among strangers impossible.
After her husband received the new kidney, Dora donated one of her kidneys to a recipient in Wilkes-Barre, PA, completing the first intercontinental exchange of kidneys. A kidney from a donor in Wilkes-Barre was flown to Jewish Hospital for JoAnn Breckinridge, and thus the chain continued.
Michael Marvin, MD, director of Transplantation at Jewish Hospital and associate professor of Surgery at the University of Louisville, and Mary Eng, MD, a transplant surgeon with Jewish Hospital and an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Louisville, were recognized by Vassilis Kaskarelis, Ambassador of Greece, at the Greek Embassy in Washington, D.C. during the official announcement of the historical paired donation.
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