22 comments

  • phibz 3 hours ago

    The math here is a little confusing, but that's an exceptionally long lived organ. For reference I received a kidney transplant from my mother at 16. It lasted 19 years after being transplanted. My mother was 68 when I had to return to dialysis.

    • astura 2 hours ago

      TFA mentioned this is very exceptional, it says both that it's the longest lasting transplant this hospital has ever done and that a living kidney donation typically lasts 15 to 20 years. Meaning your 19 years is typical.

      The transplant itself was done 48 years ago and the mother was 52 at the time (thus the kidney was already 52 yrs old at the time of transplant)

      • martyvis 2 hours ago

        More simple put, his mother was born 100 years ago and her kidney lives on.

        • hammock 16 minutes ago

          Mothers kidney: 100

          Son: 64

          Son’s transplant of mothers kidney: 48

          Typical kidney transplant lifespan: 15-20

  • Wittie 3 hours ago

    The detail that got me: both on gurneys holding hands, and the mom crying tells him "don't worry about a thing, I've got a Genesis concert and I'm not missing it". They both made it to the concert. He still has the ticket stub

  • d_silin 34 minutes ago

    There is an observation that donated organs sync to a biological age of the recipient.

    https://www.inc.com/lucia-auerbach/can-transplanted-heart-be...

  • cfiggers 19 minutes ago

    Ok so he needs to also donate it to a third person. Let's see how long we can keep it going!

  • JohnTHaller 2 hours ago

    I donated a kidney to my Dad in 2000. It gave him an extra 23 years with us. He was on very low doses of his anti-rejection meds, partially due to us being a 4 out of 6 HLA type match, so the doctors were hopeful it would last him the rest of his life. It would have lasted far longer if ALS hadn't shown up.

    • saulpw an hour ago

      Could you have gotten it back after he passed away? Or was the kidney forwarded on to someone else?

      • throwawayk7h an hour ago

        Not sure why your question is being downvoted. I think it would be fascinating to read about a kidney making a journey from son to father to son.

      • gertop 31 minutes ago

        You can't get it back there's nothing to attach it to. There's also no point for the risks involved.

        Organs can be transplanted twice but it's very rare and it's usually when the first recipient dies shortly after the transplant. It's called (quite obviously) retransplantation if you want to Google it.

      • Faaak an hour ago

        I don't know why you're being downvoted, because this is an interesting question to me at least

  • zorobo 26 minutes ago

    I read somewhere that transplanted organs adopt the age of the recipient, contradicting the hopes of people who want to live forever by replacing their organs regularly.

    Didn’t Putin allude to that recently ?

    In any case that’d be good news, it would augment the organ availability by allowing older donors!

    • bjornsing 16 minutes ago

      Yeah Putin was heard talking / bragging to Xi about it not so long ago, if I remember correctly.

  • elchief an hour ago

    i wonder if there are any kidneys or other organs on their 3rd person...

    like the donee dies, and the original kidney goes on to someone else

  • latchkey 3 hours ago

    I was confused at first. Mom donated a kidney to her son and she would have been 100, making the kidney effectively 100.

    • agumonkey 3 hours ago

      thanks for the clarification, still fascinating that the organ could live that long .. what if the son gives the kidney to a teen again ?

      • phibz 3 hours ago

        That won't happen. Even though it's still adequate for him it's very likely preforming under what a typical healthy kidney performs at. Long term slow rejection is nearly impossible to eliminate. No kidney transplant is forever and only in truly exceptional cases does it last the lifetime of the recipient.

      • bmacho 32 minutes ago

        > fascinating that the organ could live that long

        All types of organs can live that long, there are 100 years old humans around. Probably many types of organs could live much longer, we don't know that, the humans having them die first.

  • kittikitti 2 hours ago

    And these days, mothers in America will genitally mutilate (circumcise) their sons without a second thought.

    • throwawayk7h an hour ago

      I know we're not supposed to feed the trolls here but... dang it I am legitimately intrigued about your usage of "these days" here. Do you believe it's more common now than it used to be? And that it's some sign of recent societal decay?

    • mock-possum an hour ago

      Isn’t it ironic