What criteria makes someone a “match” for organ donation?
In: Biology
Okay, so to be a match for organs, a lot of things have to align. You need to have a certain number of matching factors, including your blood type, but also other things, like being a similar size (an adult heart from a 6 foot man can’t go into a five-year-old kid, it would be too big).
They also have to be within a certain distance of the patient that will receive the organ, because the organs can only last so long outside of the body.
HLA or Human Leukocyte Antigens in most cells make cell matching difficult in organ transplants, but being closely genetically related helps. In blood transfusion the presence of A and B antigens can complicate the process unless the recipients blood type is known. https://youtu.be/pt9ZBw8C1nk
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