13 Strangers Give Kidneys In Huge Lifesaving Effort

Just weeks before Christmas, 13 donors have given 13 people with failing organs a new chance at life in a massive kidney donation effort involving 26 transplants, CNN reports.

The transplants were possible through the generosity of patients' friends and family, who were willing to donate their organs to strangers.

In paired kidney donation, one incompatible donor/recipient pair...are matched with another pair in the same situation, so that the donor of the first kidney gives to the recipient of the second, and vice versa. In larger kidney exchanges, donors and recipients are mixed and matched, giving more people the chance to obtain a new kidney.

These paired kidney donation programs could allow for an additional 3,000 living donor kidney transplants a year in the U.S.

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