According to a latest study, kidney disease patients could live far longer if they get a transplant even from an incompatible living donor instead of waiting and wasting time in search of a good match.

The results may offer another choice to kidney patients, who could otherwise lose their life while waiting for a well-matched deceased donor.

To be specific, experts said that the results have come up as a ray of hope for ‘highly sensitized’ transplant candidates.

‘Highly sensitized’ transplant candidates are the patients who are having high number of immune system antibodies all set to attack a transplanted organ. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, it is quite common in people who've had a kidney transplant earlier. People, who have undergone multiple blood transfusions during dialysis, or the ones been pregnant many times, can also become sensitized.

Study lead researcher Dr. Dorry Segev, an associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said that search for a compatible donor for sensitized patients is almost impossible.

There is a substitute to it, and that is to transplant a kidney from an incompatible donor, using the special ‘desensitization’ therapies that decrease the chances of an immune system attack on the donor organ.

Johns Hopkins started working on the approach about 15 years back, which was followed by other transplant centers.

It’s only now when the long-term advantage has started becoming clear. Based on data from 22 US hospitals, Segev's team discovered that over three-quarters of patients, who got a kidney from an incompatible living donor, were living their lives happily even eight years after the implant.

Dr. Michael Flessner, a program director in the division of kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases at the US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which provided funds for the study, called it a potentially paradigm shift.