Re-transplanting a transplant

[amoLucia]

Is there practice whereby a transplanted organ (say, kidney) be re-transplanted after the death of an organ transplant recipient.

(I know I could look this up somewhere but I am just being lazy so I ask this question here.)

I ask this because this morning I was watching a rerun of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. I was only catching snippets of the show and I believe there was a murder of a previous recipient so that her donated kidney could be re-transplanted/reused. (The show was about crime-ring organ harvesting.)

My thinking is to say NO. I would not see it really feasible with possible organ rejection being so much more likely. The first transplant recipient would have used all those anti-rejection immunosuppressive drugs on the first go-round. But now the NEW #2 recipient would have to suppress not only the antigenic markers from the kidney itself (which belong to donor #1), but would there not also be some new markers that the kidney 'absorbed' from the #1 recipient? I just don't see that 'reusing' a previously transplanted organ would be a viable decision.

Am I thinking correctly along these lines? Isn't it amazing how one's mind thinks up all these things while just watching TV?

[BloomNurseRN, ASN, BSN, RN]

It happens but it's rare and it usually involves the organ not being in the patient very long before its taken out and transplanted to someone else. An example would be a kidney transplanted but the recipient not responding well (and probably dying) and it being removed but then being transplanted in to another patient.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

I'm on my phone, so not as easy to rsearch, otherwise I would. I do know an RN who works for an OPO (plus we have preop donors on my floor all the time, and thus see the OPO RNs in those situations), so should ask.

Years ago though, I had a pt who received a liver fairly emergently after an APAP OD, but developed severe cerebral edema a week or two later. She herniated and progressed to brain death. She was worked up for organ donation; however, nothing was in condition to be used. Only tissues were usable -- skin, corneas, ligaments.

[amoLucia]

Just getting back - I'm thinking what would be the longevity prognosis of a replanted organ? I just think I=t would be less than a 'fr5esh' organ - more possibilities for rejection.

Amazing what one thinks of when watchin6g TV shows with medical themes.