More Hispanic Organ Donations Needed

Health & Wellness

More Hispanic Organ Donations Needed

By
Dana Sparks

April 23, 2013

April is National Donate Life Month, held to encourage organ and tissue donation and to celebrate donors who give a new life to others. In the U.S., more than 118,000 people are waiting for organ transplants, and 19 percent are Hispanic. Experts say there is a need for organ donation in the Hispanic community because a transplant recipient is more likely to find a match among donors with the same ethnicity. Mikel Prieto, M.D., surgical director of the kidney and pancreas transplant programs at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, says, “It is always possible to find matches across ethnicities, but all ethnic groups benefit when we increase the number of donors from the same ethnic background."

Read English news release: Organ transplant expert alert-EN
Read Spanish news release: Organ transplant expert alert-SP
Donate Life America/Espanol

Sound bites with Dr. Prieto are available in English and Spanish in the downloads

Expert title for broadcast cg: Dr. Mikel Prieto, Mayo Clinic Transplant Surgeon