Facebook Status: Need Kidney

Read Full Article at MedPageToday Link

By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage TodayPublished: May 15, 2012
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Action Points

• This study was published as an abstract and presented at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
• Note that this study suggests that social media such as Facebook are being used to solicit living kidney donors and may be an emerging, influential tool to expand living kidney donation.

WASHINGTON -- Promoting living kidney donation on social networks such as Facebook -- which recently allowed users to share their organ donor status -- could increase the organ donor pool, researchers said here.
But first, researchers need to identify the factors and strategies on these networks that facilitate successful transplants, Alex Chang, MD, of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., and colleagues reported at the National Kidney Foundation meeting.