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Anyone can become an organ donor, no matter your age. Your medical condition at the time of death will determine what organs and tissue can be donated. If you would like to declare your choice to be an organ donor, be sure to enroll in your state’s donor registry and share your decision with your family and friends. Your decision to donate life can help to save many lives.

If you have a medical condition that may cause one or more of your vital organs to fail, transplant may be a treatment option. A transplant is a surgical operation to give a functioning human organ to someone whose organ has stopped working or is close to failing. In some cases, a living person can donate all or part of a functioning organ. In other instances, the donor would be someone who has recently passed away.

The organs that can be transplanted are:

• Liver

• Kidney

• Pancreas

• Kidney-pancreas (can be transplanted at the same time)

• Heart

• Lung

• Heart-lung (can be transplanted at the same time)

• Intestine

• Vascularized composite allografts, or VCAs, such as face, hand or uterus transplantation

people need a lifesaving organ transplant (total waiting list candidates). Of those, 58,704 people are active waiting list candidates.

The waitlist is a list of candidates registered to receive organ transplants. When a donor organ becomes available, the matching system dynamically generates a new, specific list of potential recipients based on the criteria defined in that organ’s allocation policy (e.g., organ type, geographic local and regional area, genetic compatibility measures, details about the condition of the organ, the candidate’s disease severity, time spent waiting, etc.).

Many medical and logistical characteristics are considered for an organ to be distributed to the best-matched potential organ recipient. While the specific criteria differ for various organs, matching criteria generally include:

• Blood type and size of the organ(s) needed

• Time spent awaiting a transplant

• The relative distance between donor and recipient

For certain organs other factors are vital, including:

• The medical urgency of the recipient

• The degree of immune system match between donor and recipient

• Whether the recipient is a child or an adult