Kidney Transplant Collaborative (KTC) Warns of Decline in Total Kidney Transplants Caused by a Decline in Deceased Kidney Donations, Calls for Immediate National Action

NEW YORK, Jan. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kidney Transplant Collaborative (KTC) today released a new report, Losing Transplants for All the Wrong Reasons. The report reveals a clear and unprecedented shift in 2025. For the first time this century, we see an annual isolated decline in deceased donations and deceased donor kidney transplants, even while living donor kidney transplants increase and the kidney discard rate declines. Even more alarmingly, this deceased donor decline also led to an aggregate decline in kidney transplants in 2025.

Based on national data and the timing of events, KTC identifies three likely drivers of this decline. First, public confidence has been shaken following widely publicized cases involving attempted organ recovery in patients who later showed signs of life. Second, donor withdrawal rates have increased as individuals remove themselves from registries. Third, OPOs may be operating more cautiously in response to investigations, legal exposure, and public scrutiny, particularly in Donation After Circulatory Death cases that historically supported transplant growth. While oversight matters, the environment created by these incidents appears to have shaken public trust and altered behavior across the broader health system.

For patients already facing long transplant wait times and life-threatening uncertainty, this decline is dangerous and avoidable. KTC is calling for action by expanding access to living kidney donors in order to save lives and rebuild trust in the transplant system.

"For the first time in decades, we are seeing a measurable decline in deceased kidney donations even as living donations continue to rise. This is a serious signal for the transplant community and patients will feel the consequences quickly," said Dr. Andy Howard, MD, FACP, Chair of the Kidney Transplant Collaborative. "The evidence consistently shows that living kidney donations can increase transplant rates when patients and donors receive real support, guidance, and navigation. We already know what works and how to scale it. The question now is whether we act in time to prevent avoidable loss of life."

Transplant levels remained steady through early 2025 before starting to decline beginning in June. From 2024 to 2025, there were 116 fewer kidney transplants nationwide, a decline of 0.4%. This decrease was driven entirely by a decline in recovered deceased donors, even as living donor kidney transplants increased by more than 100.

2025 was the first year since COVID in which the total number of kidney transplants declined compared to the prior year. Unlike prior declines this century, the 2025 decline reflects a structural decrease in deceased donor kidney transplants. 2025 was thus the first recent year in which deceased kidney donations declined while living donations increased.

The decline would have been even more pronounced had it not been for a significant improvement in kidney utilization. In 2025, the kidney discard rate declined by 7.2% compared to 2024, resulting in more completed deceased donor transplants than would have occurred under prior years with higher discard rates. This marks the first improvement in the kidney discard rate since at least 2020.

More than 94,000 Americans are currently waiting for a kidney transplant. Most will wait three to five years and each day 12 to 17 people die waiting. A decline in deceased donations puts lives at risk and places additional strain on dialysis, hospitals, and the health system.

KTC is the first organization to publicly connect this new data to the sudden decline in deceased donations. Without immediate action, more patients will be pushed onto long-term dialysis and a system already stretched thin will face mounting pressure both financially and logistically. Policymakers, hospitals, and transplant leaders should not sit on the sidelines thinking this crisis will solve itself.

The fastest way to save lives now is to dramatically expand living kidney donations. Living donors save lives, yet there is still no federal program that helps patients identify a donor or proactively supports willing donors through a complex medical and logistical process. Many donors who want to step forward never complete the journey simply because they lack hands-on guidance.

A coordinated national living donor support effort can be launched quickly by scaling best practices already proven at leading institutions like Johns Hopkins and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. These programs show that dedicated transplant facilitation and a dedicated transplant facilitator support to assist recipients and their families to identify living donors within their network and then assist that potential donor through  the process will significantly increase donor completion rates without adding burdens to transplant centers or reinventing existing systems.

For more information and to download the report, please visit www.kidneytransplantcollaborative.com.

About the Kidney Transplant Collaborative

The Kidney Transplant Collaborative (KTC) is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing kidney transplants and removing financial and logistical barriers for kidney patients, donors, and their families. Unlike other initiatives, KTC is specifically focused on increasing the number of living donor transplants in the United States through policy advocacy, education, and community organizing. For more details, visit www.kidneytransplantcollaborative.com

CONTACT: Eden Hoffman, [email protected] 

SOURCE Kidney Transplant Collaborative