Transplant games highlight athletic donors

For 150 Americans, the Olympics are happening this week in Sydney, Australia.

The World Transplant Games features 43 teams from across the world, whose athletes all share a common trait - they have had an organ transplant.

More than 40 competitions, such as swimming, cycling, golf, volleyball and tennis are scheduled for the event.

University Hospitals is broadcasting the Games on the Website via TransWeb.

TransWeb is a Website about organ donation and transplantation. "This Website grew out of the transplant surgery department," said the University Webmaster Fran Kelsen, who built the site.

The site has information about transplantation for both donors and transplant patients.

TransWeb will do a live Webcast of the scores and a nationwide update of the athletic events. The address is http://www.transweb.org/athletics/world_games/97/.

Kelsen said she hopes to "get more traffic for the site."

"This is my first world competition," said athletic participant Sandy Webster.

Webster was only 10 years old when doctors told her she had a rare disease that attacks kidneys.

"The transplant community is like a big family," Webster said. Not only are the transplant games fun, Webster said, but they "get the whole community to think about organ donation."

Webster said that the games are also an opportunity for athletes to "show donors that we'll take care of ourselves."

Transplants are not "gory," Webster said. "With the advancement in medicine it's so different ... they don't rip you open."

Internal Medicine Prof. Chen Hsu said University Hospitals sees about 60 kidney transplant patients each week. Patients range in age from one to around 75 years old.

However, if patients are in poor health, their bodies will not accept the donated organ and death is inevitable. Transplant patients must be on medication for their entire life, Hsu said.

Although the survival rate of transplant patients is not 100 percent, transplant patients can "generally live a normal life," Hsu said. "We have accomplished a lot."

"We already know the gene which carries kidney disease," Hsu said. Family counseling is an important factor in decision making for families who have kidney disease in their history.

In the future, gene therapy may be an option for those who have kidney disease. Preventing kidney disease will become easier as we learn more about its causes, Hsu said.

Medical School Prof. Jonathan Bromberg said that kidney transplant is much more cost effective than putting patients on dialysis, which requires three hospital visits each week.

"We take debilitated people and attempt to make them whole," Bromberg said.

Kidney patients can live an active life, as shown by the athletes competing in the games.

Bromberg said the games "gives (transplant patients) something to be involved in, ways to pursue health, and go back to a normal lifestyle."

Bromberg said he hopes the games "show people how well transplants work and get people to sign organ donor cards."

The lack of organ donation is probably due to the difficulty of the subject, and the lack of discussion between family members about donation.

"It is a huge tragedy," Bromberg said. "Over 60,000 people are waiting for organs." Approximately 5,000 people donate organs each year, which accounts for long organ transplant waiting lists.

Facts: