{"id":226896,"date":"2026-04-10T22:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T22:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/226896\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T22:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T22:22:08","slug":"paired-kidney-exchange-helps-tampa-patients-find-donors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/226896\/","title":{"rendered":"Paired kidney exchange helps Tampa patients find donors"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Tampa General Hospital is helping kidney patients find donors faster through the Paired Kidney Exchange Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

When waiting for a kidney, most recipients wait up to five years, according to the National Kidney Foundation<\/a>
\n
The Paired Kidney Exchange Program at Tampa General Hospital matches needy recipients with willing donors
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45% of donor\/recipient pairs could find a perfect match by entering the program, according to Tampa General<\/p>\n

When someone is in need of a kidney, they often turn to family first because the wait time for a donor can be as long as five years.<\/p>\n

But what if it didn\u2019t matter if your family actually matched? That\u2019s the basis of the exchange program that changed the Penningroth family forever.<\/p>\n

Type 1 diabetes has been a near lifelong struggle for Ailey Penningroth. She was diagnosed at just two and a half.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got out of college, I sort of started having a little more fun, and not being as careful about my blood sugars, and that\u2019s when my kidney really started to suffer,\u201d said Ailey.<\/p>\n

Ailey received her first kidney transplant in 2008, and she also received a pancreas. But those donated organs, Ailey says, only lasted a few years.<\/p>\n

Right before the pandemic, Ailey and her doctors at Tampa General\u00a0Hospital\u00a0came to the conclusion: she needed another transplant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was just going on another list,\u201d Ailey said.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what happened.<\/p>\n

Her brother, UC Berkeley Professor Dylan Penningroth, began working with TGH to see if he was a match. He wasn\u2019t, but that didn\u2019t matter for the Paired Kidney Exchange Program.<\/p>\n

This is how TGH explains the program:<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes a donor is not compatible with the person to whom he or she wants to donate. Through the paired exchange program, that donor could agree to donate to a different, matching recipient. In exchange, the donor\u2019s recipient receives a living donor kidney from someone in the same situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dylan donated his kidney to a needy recipient, and, in turn, another compatible donor gave theirs to Ailey. It all happened\u00a0on\u00a0the same day.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, it seemed like kind of a no-brainer that if it was possible for me to do it, I was going to do it,\u201d Dylan said.<\/p>\n

Tampa General says as many as 2,000 additional transplants per year could happen using the partner kidney exchange.<\/p>\n

An estimated 45% of donor\/recipient pairs could find a perfect match by participating in the nationwide program, according to TGH.<\/p>\n

It took Dylan about 3 months to fully recover, while Ailey\u00a0started feeling better immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just incredible for me. I feel like every single day is a gift,\u201d said Ailey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can share this story with other people, they might be inspired, and I think people, deep down, fundamentally, are good. And, often, it\u2019s just a matter of giving them a chance to show that side of themselves,\u201d Dylan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Tampa General Hospital is helping kidney patients find donors faster through the Paired Kidney Exchange Program.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4323,3076,3948,6466,1548,571,6075,276,115,135,137,136,835],"class_list":["post-226896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-andy-cole","tag-app-good-news","tag-app-health","tag-app-latest-health-stories","tag-good-news","tag-health","tag-health-and-medicine","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}