An organ donor is someone who gives one or more of their organs or tissues to another person who needs a transplant to survive or regain quality of life. A single organ donor can provide up to eight lifesaving organs, and tissue donations from that same person can help dozens more. Donors fall into two categories: deceased donors, who give organs after death, and living donors, who donate certain organs or tissues while still alive.
What Organs and Tissues Can Be Donated
Six organs can be transplanted from a deceased donor: the heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, intestine, and pancreas. Because you have two kidneys and two lungs, one person can supply multiple recipients. Beyond organs, donors can also provide tissues like corneas, heart valves, bone, cartilage, skin, tendons, and blood vessels. These tissue grafts are used in a wide range of procedures, from restoring sight with a corneal transplant to repairing torn ligaments with donated tendons.
Living vs. Deceased Donation
Living donors most commonly give one kidney or a segment of their liver, since the liver can regenerate to near-normal size in both the donor and recipient within weeks. Less commonly, living donors can give a lobe of a lung, part of the pancreas, or a portion of the intestine. Living donors can also give skin (after cosmetic surgeries like a tummy tuck), bone (after knee or hip replacements), bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, and amnion tissue after childbirth.
One key advantage of living donation is choice. Unlike deceased donation, a living donor can direct their organ to a specific person, which often means the recipient gets a transplant faster. For kidney donors, the hospital stay is typically about two days, with most people resuming normal activities within four to six weeks. Driving restrictions last about two weeks, and lifting restrictions at least six weeks.
Deceased donation happens after a person has died, most often after brain death. Doctors confirm brain death through a series of tests showing no brain function: no response to pain, no reflexes controlled by the brainstem, and no ability to breathe independently. These criteria must all be met before donation is even discussed. The medical team working to save a patient’s life is always separate from any transplant team.
Who Can Be a Donor
Almost anyone can register as a potential organ donor regardless of age. Medical teams evaluate each potential donor individually at the time of death, so having a chronic condition doesn’t automatically rule you out. Conditions like Parkinson’s disease, muscular dystrophy, osteoporosis, and even lupus (if asymptomatic) are generally acceptable. Asthma is fine if it’s well controlled.
A smaller number of conditions do permanently disqualify someone from donating certain tissues. These include sickle cell disease, ALS, cirrhosis, and most blood clotting factor deficiencies. But these exclusions apply to specific donation types, not necessarily all of them. The bottom line: don’t assume you’re ineligible. Registration costs nothing, and the final medical decision is made by transplant professionals when the time comes.
How Organs Are Matched to Recipients
When an organ becomes available, a national computer system managed by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) identifies potential recipients. The matching process weighs several factors, including blood type, antibody levels, body size, medical urgency, and time spent on the waiting list. Geographic proximity also plays a role, though policies have shifted over the years toward broader sharing so that the sickest patients get priority regardless of location.
For lungs, a Composite Allocation Score approved in 2023 combines six factors: predicted waitlist survival, predicted post-transplant survival, biological compatibility, pediatric status, whether the candidate has previously been a living donor, and travel logistics. Kidney allocation uses a percentile-based scoring system that assesses both the quality of the donor organ and the expected post-transplant survival of each candidate. The goal across all organ types is to balance urgency, compatibility, and the likelihood of a successful outcome.
The Gap Between Supply and Need
Over 103,000 people are currently on the national transplant waiting list. Every eight minutes, another person is added. Thirteen people die each day because a matching organ doesn’t arrive in time. The majority of people on the list, roughly 85%, are waiting for a kidney.
These numbers explain why both living and deceased donation matter so much. A single deceased donor who provides organs and tissues can transform the lives of dozens of people. Living kidney donation alone accounts for a significant share of all kidney transplants and typically produces better long-term outcomes for recipients because the organ spends less time outside a body.
How to Register
You can sign up as an organ donor online through your state’s donor registry or in person at your local motor vehicle department. If you have an iPhone, the Health app lets you register and sends your information to a national database. Registering takes a few minutes and creates a legal record of your decision. It’s also worth telling your family, since they may be consulted at the time of donation even if you’re already registered.
One persistent concern is whether being a registered donor affects the medical care you receive in an emergency. It does not. When you arrive at a hospital, the priority is saving your life. Donation only becomes a possibility after all lifesaving efforts have failed, and the doctors treating you have no connection to any transplant team.