MatchingDonors.com Celebrates Anniversary Of First Surgery. One of the greatest technology advances in transplantation celebrates its first anniversary.

Contact:
Robert Volosevich, Jr.
MatchingDonors.com, Inc.
766 Turnpike Street
Canton, MA 02021
MDPR@MatchingDonors.com
Office: 781-821-2204

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MatchingDonors.com Celebrates Anniversary Of First Surgery.

One of the greatest technology advances in transplantation celebrates its first anniversary.

Colorado Doctor Credits website with saving his life! Hickey said without MatchingDonors.com he'd "be dead!"

Site Endorsed by Various Health Officials, Ethicists and Doctors across the Country

Canton, MA –

It was Dr. Robert Hickey who made headlines when he made history last year as the first recipient of a kidney from Rob Smitty of Tennessee, a donor he met online. It was last October 20, 2004 when Hickey had his surgery. There has been sixteen transplants done in the past twelve months between patients and donors who have found a match on MatchingDonors.com that have gone onto surgery. When asked about his surgery and what he wants others who are waiting for a transplant to know Hickey said fighting back tears, “Exciting!, Just a moving experience." The most recent transplant was on September 28, 2005 when Dr. Angie Carranza received a kidney from Sandy Miller of Bowling Green, Ohio. The transplant took place at Porter-Adventist Hospital in Denver.

Hickey said the hardest part of a kidney transplant is getting used to a new life. "Seven years of being disabled, being tied to home, not working, or traveling or anything, to have that change overnight was a big adjustment," Hickey said.

In just under a year since the recovery from Hickey’s transplant surgery he has been visiting cities across the United States and Canada advocating for other people needing transplants. Dr. Hickey has met with medical ethicists, transplant surgeons and transplant program administrators to encourage rational policy changes to permit altruistic live donor transplants. Just in the past few months he has visited Health Canada officials and Canada Legislators regarding transplants. “We want to thank Dr. Hickey for being a continual advocate for MatchingDonors.com and his efforts to increase internet donations across the globe” said Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, Medical Director of MatchingDonors.com.

“This past year has been great for us and we never expected that MatchingDonors.com would make medical history, or that we would we be able to save so many lives in such a short period of time. We would like to thank the patients, donors, and especially the surgeons that performed our many matches that have gone onto surgery! This is only the beginning.” said Paul Dooley, CEO of MatchingDonors.com.

Since it’s launch the website has been featured in the New England Journal of Medicine, been invited Harvard University Medical School, seen on national and local television stations and had numerous articles written about them.

MatchingDonors.com, a non-profit, 501(c)3 charitable membership organization was launched in January of 2004 as an Internet service based in Massachusetts. Patients on transplant lists put their profiles on the website, and potential donors browse the site for a life they want to help save. Donors are not compensated, since it is against the law to have any financial benefit from organ donation.

Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, one of the Web site founders, said “Patients are asked to pay a membership fee, but they don't pay a fee if they can't afford it.” Many praise MatchingDonors.com as a creative, entrepreneurial response to this deadly disparity, and 100% of the money paid for patient memberships is applied to running the site.
Since the inception of MatchingDonors.com, directed living organ donations have increased to historic numbers. According to UNOS.org, from January, 2005 to June, 2005 out of the 7,241 donors recovered for transplantation 3,802 were from deceased donors and 3,439 were from living donors.

“We believe that if more people were better educated on the ability to be a live organ donor, and we add in the personal communication between potential organ donors and patients needing an organ, the number of donors will increase and so will the probability of a patient receiving their much needed organ. We already have over 2,431 potential donors on our site waiting to find patients needing organs”, said Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, MatchingDonors.com Medical Director. “MatchingDonors.com is the most comprehensive searching system available. Other organizations concentrate mainly on the passive anonymous portion of finding organ donors - leaving little or no communication between patients and potential donors”.

MatchingDonors.com has had incredible success in its first 12 months:
1. MatchingDonors.com has an extremely high success rate - most patient members that have been on the site for at least 30 days have been offered an organ by a potential donor.
2. At least 21 of our patient members have upcoming surgery dates with their donors found on MatchingDonors.com.
3. Immediately after its first surgery in October 2004, MatchingDonors.com had over 2 million visitors on a weekly basis.
4. As of October 18, 2005 MatchingDonors.com now has over 100 patients with active profiles and over 2,431 potential donors on the site. New patients and potential donors sign up daily.
5. MatchingDonors.com is recommended and used by many doctors across the United States, including some of the most prestigious transplant surgeons and centers.

As of October 18, 2005 there are roughly 89,766 patients waiting for an organ transplant in the United States. Yet, from January 2005 to July 2005, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a non-profit organization contracted with the US Department of Health, there were only 16,445 organ transplants performed in the United States. Every day, 17 people die while waiting for a transplant of a vital organ, such as a heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, or lung. This creates a national crisis that has led even President Bush to publicly encourage private organizations to raise awareness of the important need for organ and tissue donors.

Currently, patients waiting for an organ donation are placed on a national waiting list through the United Network for Organ Sharing. A computer system matches patients to donor organs according to objective criteria such as blood and tissue type, immune status, medical urgency and time spent on the waiting list. This ranking system determines which patients are offered available organs. This process is extremely important in anyone’s organ search, but now MatchingDonors.com offers a way to enhance the search with a more active approach.

MatchingDonors.com main objective is to search the world to find potential live donors for people in need of organ transplants. Patient members of MatchingDonors.com provide a personal biography as well as pictures of their choice to display on the website, which will create an interest in them and their life story. When patients in need of an organ transplant place themselves into MatchingDonors.com database, their information will be promoted on the website.

MatchingDonors.com advertises and promotes its Web site in many different ways through extensive public relations networking to increase potential donor’s viewing the site.

The personal connection MatchingDonors.com provides is key to finding a potential live donor. According to the National Kidney Foundation, "Nearly one out of four (23.4%) of 1000 people queried told pollsters that they would be "likely" to consider donating a kidney or a portion of their liver or lung to help save the life of someone they did not know." Many people feel more comfortable considering offering a live donation to someone they may have a connection to or a common bond.

-more-

When patients provide their biography and open up personally, the potential for live donors to respond is increased. To help educate people about the option of live organ donation, MatchingDonors.com Web site provides extensive information regarding the safety and types of donations available.

MatchingDonors.com Medical Director, Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, is available for interviews for print, radio and television before and after the surgery.

Please contact Doctor Lowney at 781-821-2204 to set up interviews.

Many of our patients and donors are willing to speak with the press.

Contact information about our patients and donors may be obtained by calling MatchingDonors.com at 781-821-2204.
MatchingDonors.com is not an organ donor waiting list, and is not associated with any organ donor organization. It is a nonprofit venue where patients and potential donors can communicate and hopefully expedite a live donor agreeing to give a much-needed organ. MatchingDonors.com gives patients and potential donors the important communication tools to correspond with each other, but once the contact between the parties has been made, the road to transplant surgery is their own.

Based in Canton, Mass., MatchingDonors.com is a nonprofit corporation with people based throughout the United States. Anyone interested in donating money to support MatchingDonors.com services can do so by calling Matchingdonors.com at 781-821-2204.
More information about the company is available at its corporate Web site, http://www.MatchingDonors.com.

# # #