Live donors of tissue

Abstract

Donations by living donors include bone, cord blood, amniotic membrane, ophthalmic limbal stem cells and heart valves. The latter may include heart lung block recipients who then donate their hearts. Allograft haemopoietic stem cell donors of bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cells are also clearly living donors but are not dealt with in this chapter because their donations are not banked but used directly after donation. Living tissue and cell donors dealt with in this chapter, and the circumstances of their procurement, are summarised in Table 1.1.