Department of Surgery
Division of Solid Organ Transplantation
Procedures
Pancreas Transplant Surgery
The Transplant Process - Waiting for an Organ
Guide to Pancreas Transplant |
Unfortunately, there are many more people on the waiting list than there are organs available each year, so the wait can last up to several years. (Currently, there are more than 3,500 people in the United States waiting for a pancreas or a combined pancreas-kidney transplant.) That’s why becoming an organ donor is so important.
National Waiting List
The national waiting list for donated organs is maintained by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). In 1984 Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act to address the grave shortage of organs and improve organ matching and placement. The act set up the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to maintain a national registry for organ matching. The network was to be run by a private, non-profit organization under federal contract. UNOS is that organization.
The network consists of many OPOs (Organ Procurement Organizations) across the country. Each is responsible for a specific region. For the Rochester, Syracuse, and Finger Lakes region, the OPO is the Finger Lakes Donor Recovery Network (FLDRN). Affiliated with the University of Rochester Medical Center, FLDRN coordinates organ donation in 19 counties with a population of 2.4 million, and serves 44 hospitals in the Finger Lakes region, central, and northern New York. The phone number is 585-272-4930.
Policies on Organ Donation
The UNOS and OPTN community includes medical professionals, patients, donors, their families and friends. Working together, the OPTN sets the policy on organ donation for the country, subject to approval by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). These policies are circulated for public comment and can be viewed at the UNOS web site.
Learn more about how an organ match is made.