About your donor
Why it’s important to know some medical information about your donor
Key points
- You might need to know some basic medical information about your donor
- The health of your donor may influence the health of the bowel that is being donated to you, which may affect your health
- All donated bowels carry some risk, though in general this is much lower than the risk from your bowel disease
What you might need to know about your donor
There are some things that can affect how well a donated bowel will work after a transplant. The health of your donor and their bowel is one of them.
All donated organs carry some risk, but this will vary from donor to donor. In general, this risk is much lower than the risks posed by your bowel disease.
Learn about the risks from a donated bowel
You cannot find out personal details about your donor, as this is confidential. Your transplant team can tell you of any known medical information about your donor that might affect the health of the donated bowel.
With a deceased donor, time is often short. Sometimes it is not possible to find out everything about the health of the donor before their organs are removed. All donated organs carry a very small risk of passing on serious diseases. These risks are usually much lower than the risks of remaining on intravenous feeding. The majority of bowels work well after transplantation.
Gathering information about deceased donors
This is not always straightforward and it can sometimes be difficult to gather health information about a deceased donor. This is because:
- We cannot ask deceased donors about their previous health
- Donors may not have told their loved ones or GP about their health issues
- There may only be a short time available to carry out tests on the donor
