About Us:

Lifesharing is one of 58 regional non-profits dedicated to the life-saving and life-enhancing benefits of organ and tissue donation. Lifesharing provides organ recovery, donor family support, and educational services for the diverse population of approximately 3 million people in San Diego and Imperial Counties. Organ and tissue procurement services supply 28 donor hospitals and four local transplant centers with transplantable organs for the ever-growing waiting list of nearly 2,200 San Diego patients and more than 123,000 patients nationwide.

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COVID-19 UPDATE: Lifesharing continues to save lives through organ and tissue donation. We are taking every precaution to protect the health of our families, team members and transplant recipients. Please read an important message from Executive Director Lisa Stocks.

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Tissue Donation

LifesharingAbout DonationTissue Donation

Tissue Bank & Services

Lifesharing Tissue Services provides the opportunity to improve and extend lives through the procurement, processing, storage and distribution of human tissue for transplantation and research. Originally established in 1984 to support the Burn Center at UCSD Medical Center, Lifesharing Tissue Services is a non-profit organization serving San Diego and Imperial counties in Southern California.

The majority of tissues recovered by Lifesharing Tissue Services stay in this region to enable physicians to provide the best possible care for critically ill patients. Tissue grafting not only reduces pain and speeds recovery, but it also improves a patient’s quality of life.

Fully accredited by the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Lifesharing Tissue Services works to ensure the highest quality of tissue and technical service.

The Impact of Tissue Donation

A single tissue donor conservatively can save and enhance up to 50 lives. The diagram below illustrates the potential number of lives that can be affected by a single tissue donor.

A single person can save and enhance up to 50 lives!

Who can be a tissue donor?

All candidates for skin and bone grafts must be free from infectious and degenerative diseases. Not everyone can be a skin and bone donor. History and medical condition at the time of death determines whether or not one can donate. Fortunately, however, approximately 85 percent of people can be a tissue donor.

Age:

  • Women: birth to 75 years
  • Men: no age limit

Benefits of Tissue Donation

Tissue grafting not only reduces pain and speeds recovery, but it also improves a patient’s quality of life.

Bone

  • Restores mobility
  • Promotes healing
  • Reduces pain
  • Helps repair bone and prevent amputation

Skin

  • Promotes healing
  • Prevents infections for burn victims

Cornea

  • Restores sight
  • Used for surgical repair of the cornea

Heart Valves

  • Replaces defective valves
  • Improves heart function

Veins

  • Restores blood flow
  • Prevents amputation
  • Used during bypass surgery

Tendons

  • Replaces damaged ligaments
  • Restores joints and cartilage surfaces

Facts about Tissue Donation

Tissue donors can give the precious gift of sight to the blind, or help a burn survivor through skin donation, or perhaps help someone recover from an accident or cancer with donated bone. Tissue donors also can provide life-saving heart valves, nerves, ligaments, tendons, and more.

600,000+ tissue transplants occur nationwide each year
Bone grafts are the second most frequently transplanted tissues
70+ heart values transplanted in San Diego
150+ vein grafts transplanted in San Diego
218 tissue donors in San Diego County helped an estimated 15,000 patients
400 square feet of skin each year utilized by the regional burn center
Lifesharing supports the nation’s only fresh joint and cartilage reconstruction
Register to be an Organ and Tissue Donor Today!
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