No, they are not twins. They are actually two and a half years apart, but each one shares an exact match of the other’s kidney.
Brandon Sims donated his kidney to his younger brother, Chris Sims, in February. Jason Wellen, MD, surgical director of the kidney transplant program at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center, performed Brandon’s donor surgery. Louis. Yiing Lin, MD, PhD, an abdominal transplant surgeon at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center, performed Chris’ recipient surgery.
In 2016, Chris Sims developed an idiopathic scarring inside his kidneys when he was away at college in Texas.
“I started to feel bad after I went on a geology field trip. I went to the hospital, thinking it was pneumonia or something like that, and they said my creatinine levels were really high and my blood pressure was really high,” Chris said.
He is svelte and, before this incident, was in good health. Chris said his blood pressure had always been normal.
“So they checked my kidney function and they said they were failed, at that point,” he said.
It turned out that his glomeruli, tiny structures inside the kidneys that filter impurities from the blood to create urine, turned into scar tissue, making his kidneys nonfunctional. Chris was diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, or FSGS. Scarred glomeruli cannot be repaired. His physicians don’t know what caused this to happen to his kidneys.
The resulting kidney failure meant life-saving hemodialysis, then home dialysis. After some months, Chris was on the transplant list, just long enough to find out that his near perfect living donor match was one of his two siblings, Brandon.
“Perfect through everything except for blood type,” Brandon said. Although they had different blood types, Brandon was still able to donate a kidney to Chris.
“That’s only for live donors,” their mother, Kim Sims, said. “Only with live donors, the blood type can be different.”
Genetics testing showed FSGS was not hereditary for either brother.
Chris had to take immunosuppression medication and undergo other procedures to prepare his body for the kidney transplant.
African Americans make up the largest group of people in need of kidney transplants, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It reports that higher rates of diabetes and high blood pressure among African Americans increase the risk of organ failure. While African Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, they are 34 percent of those waiting for a kidney, and 25 percent of persons waiting for a heart.
Overall, Caucasians make up the majority of candidates in need of an organ donation (42.7 percent), followed by blacks (30 percent), Hispanics/Latinos (18.7 percent), Asians (7 percent), and Native Americans and Alaskan natives (1.1 percent), according to 2015 HHS data. Nearly 115,000 people in the U.S. are currently on an active waiting list for an organ transplant, according to national data by the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network.
Right after his transplant surgery, Chris said, “I felt like me before my kidneys failed.”
Both of the Sims brothers are recovering well from their kidney donor and kidney transplant surgeries. Brandon is back at work, and both brothers plan to return to school next year.
“Kidney donors tend to be healthier than the average person, able to tolerate surgery well and return to a healthy lifestyle,” the National Kidney Foundation states on its website, www.kidney.org. “Potential donors are screened for high blood pressure and diabetes, two of the main causes of kidney disease.” It also states that living donors have few long-term health problems with a long-term survival rate similar to that of non-donors, with no increased risk of kidney failure.
“In order to be a kidney donor, you already have to be healthy,” Brandon said, adding that medical staff are constantly testing potential donors throughout the pre-transplant process to make sure they fit the bill to be a donor. “It’s better to be able to [donate] than not be able to – because that means you have other things you have to worry about,” Brandon said.
Donating a kidney requires major surgery, and all surgeries have risks. However, Chris said you should not be afraid to donate.
Chris said, “Everyone always wants a second chance, no matter what, but when you actually get one, and you actually feel like you have a second chance now – it’s a good feeling to give that second chance, and it’s a good feeling to get that second chance.”
Find out more about organ donation at www.kidney.org or at https://www.organdonor.gov.
