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(11/26/03 8:45 pm)
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Kidney Donors Reach Out to Alonzo Mourning
(1010 WINS) (TRENTON) In the wake of the announcement that Alonzo Mourning requires a kidney transplant, dozens of people from around the country have expressed interest in donating an organ to the ailing New Jersey Nets center.
Gregory Perrin of the Kidney and Urology Foundation of America said his organization received about 60 calls Tuesday and Wednesday from people asking for information on how to become a donor.
About half the callers asked specifically about donating a kidney to Mourning, said Perrin, the organization's director of marketing and development. Other callers were interested in organ donation in general.
Perrin said the callers were given information on how to be screened and tested to become donors.
Mourning declined to comment Wednesday through his agent, Jeff Wechsler, who said the potential donations were a private matter.
The outpouring followed the announcement Monday that Mourning, who suffers from a disease called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, needs a kidney transplant and will have to retire from the NBA.
"Obviously, we're regretful that Mr. Mourning has to go through this, but at the same time he's an inspiration," Perrin said from his office in New York. "He's stepped forward to talk about his disease over the years, and that takes a lot of the fear factor away for people. He's been very vocal. He's never hidden the fact that he has the disease."
Mourning, 33, was diagnosed with the disease before the 2000-2001 NBA season when he was a member of the Miami Heat. He missed the first 69 games of that season, but played the full 2001-02 season, averaging 15.7 points and 8.4 rebounds. He missed all of last season.
In his comeback this year, he played in 12 regular season games for the Nets, averaging 8.0 points and 2.3 rebounds in 17.9 minutes. He looked exhausted when he left the court for a breather during his final game Saturday.
Mourning was notified Sunday by Dr. Gerald Appel, a kidney specialist at Columbia University Medical Center, that his kidney function had deteriorated in recent weeks and that the chemical imbalances in his blood made it dangerous for him to continue playing.
Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, known as FSGS, affects the filters of the kidney that are responsible for removing toxins from the urine. It frequently does not produce symptoms and can only be diagnosed through a kidney biopsy.
According to statistics compiled by the Kidney and Urology Foundation, about 83,000 people await organ transplants in the United States, including 57,000 awaiting kidney transplants. Perrin said that on average, 17 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant.
Some have questioned the motives of people who would offer to donate an organ to someone they don't know, particularly a celebrity like Mourning.
Potential donors undergo psychological as well as medical testing to determine whether their motives are altruistic, said Anne Paschke, a spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing, the organization that manages the nation's transplant system and maintains the national organ waiting list.
About 20 percent of patients who receive a transplant suffer a recurrence of FSGS, said Dr. Ira Greifer, a professor of pediatric nephrology at Montefiore Medical Center in New York and the president of the Kidney and Urology Foundation.
The prospect of a live organ donation -- an organ donated by a living person instead of from a cadaver -- can cut the length of the wait for a patient awaiting a transplant. Live organ donations have been on the rise in recent years, and surpassed donations from cadavers for the first time in 2001, according to statistics released by the federal government.
There is no single cause of FSGS, but factors such as hypertension, extreme obesity, intravenous drug abuse and HIV have been associated with the disease.
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