About Tissue Donation
Every registered or authorized tissue donor can impact the lives of up to 75 people waiting for a life-enhancing procedure. People who die outside of a hospital setting can be eligible for tissue donation.
Every year, approximately 58,000 tissue donors provide gifts that provide healing to people who are fighting life-limiting disease or injury. 2.5 million tissue transplants are performed each year in the United States.
Tissue banks and tissue processors are essential partners in HonorBridge’s mission to improve lives through tissue recovery. We work together to ensure safety and efficiency.
In 2021, HonorBridge recovered 2,771 from 1,286 donors. But if you include out-of-hospital deaths in the number of potential tissue donors, the potential to recover the healing gifts of tissue increases exponentially. In 2021, approximately 67,000 people died outside of the hospital in North Carolina and could have been evaluated for potential tissue or eye donation.
Donated tissues are used in a variety of procedures that can save lives, repair limbs, relieve pain or enhance a patient’s quality of life. The following is a list of the types of tissue that can be donated along with recipient benefits.
- Heart valves may be used to replace valves that have been damaged or no longer function properly.
- Recovered veins may be used for aneurysm repair by strengthening the vessel walls. Those same veins may also be used for patch grafts during heart valve replacement surgeries. Veins may be used for multiple and repeat coronary artery bypass surgeries, to restore blood flow below the knee and as a vascular access for long-term hemodialysis patients.
- Skin may be used to treat burn patients. These grafts assist the patient in fighting off infections as well as giving the patient’s own skin time to heal. The derma skin may be used in reconstructive surgeries for women who have undergone mastectomies due to breast cancer. The skin may also be used in certain oral surgeries, gynecologic-obstetric surgeries, and orthopedic surgeries.
- Bone grafts may be used in numerous surgical procedures, such as replacement for bone deficits for victims of cancer, trauma, and other conditions, which require bone to facilitate recovery. In some cases, the graft means the difference between amputation of a limb or maintaining the ability to walk.
- Soft tissues such as tendons, ligaments, and fascia may be used for corrective knee and ankle surgeries, gynecologic-obstetric surgeries and many other reconstructive surgeries.
Once the tissue donation process is complete, the donor is prepared for transport to the funeral home. Just as in organ recovery, an open-casket funeral can be held. Tissues are recovered using dignified surgical procedures, and our funeral home partners are skilled in preparing donors for viewing and memorial services.
Download a printer-friendly infographic on how to make an out-of-hospital death referral.
To make an out-of-hospital death referral: 1-800-252-2672
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