UNOS DonateLife

November 1, 1999

Football Hall of Famer Walter Payton Dies

Richmond, Va. -- The United Network for Organ Sharing and those in the transplant community share in the grief of Walter Payton's death from cancer on Nov. 1, 1999.

The number one issue in the transplant field is the shortage of organs and what can be done to fulfill the ever-growing need. In communication with the press and on his personal Web site, Payton acknowledged the need for organs and asked people to help.

In a statement before his death, Payton asked that friends and fans continue to pray for him and consider becoming an organ donor. Sign your donor card and tell your family about your wishes, Payton wrote. "My good friend and former coach, Mike Ditka, put it best when he said the greatest gift anyone can give is, through death, to give life to another person by being an organ donor."

The NFL Hall of Famer had primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), which afflicts just three in 100,000 people, Payton's physician Dr. Joseph Lagatutta, told the Associated Press in February. PSC is a rare disease in which the bile ducts inside and outside the liver become narrowed due to inflammation and scarring. PSC is a progressive disease that leads to cirrhosis and liver failure.

At the request of his family, doctors declined to share when Payton was first diagnosed with cancer. One of 10 patients with PSC contracts cancer in the ducts that drain bile away from the liver.

"Unfortunately, Walter's malignancy was very advanced," said Mayo Clinic liver specialist Dr. Greg Gores, at a press conference. "It had progressed to a stage where liver transplantation was no longer an option."

Nearly 14,000 people were registered on the national waiting list for a liver on Oct. 13, 1999. More than 66,000 people are on the national waiting list for organs. More than 21,000 transplants were performed in 1998, but 4,857 people died last year while waiting for organs.

The organ matching process is determined solely by a combination of medical factors such as degree of illness, blood type and size of the organ needed, and medical/ethical circumstances such as a patient's waiting time and the relative distance between the organ donor and recipient. No consideration in allocation is given to gender, race, citizenship or social factors such as wealth or celebrity status.