CLEVELAND (AP) – Brad Kaster donated a kidney to his father this week, and he barely has a scar to show for it.

The kidney was removed through a single incision in his bellybutton, a surgical procedure Cleveland Clinic doctors say will reduce recovery time and leave almost no scarring.

“The actual incision point on me is so tiny I’m not getting any pain from it,” Kaster, 29, said Wednesday. “I can’t even see it.”

More than 80,000 Americans are awaiting kidney transplants. Last year, there were about 13,300 kidney donors in the U.S., and about 45 percent were living donors, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

Preliminary data from the first nine donors who had the bellybutton procedure showed they recovered in about just under a month, while donors who underwent the standard laparoscopic procedure took just longer than three months to recover.

Drs. Paul Curcillo and Stephanie King of Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia developed a single-incision technique and Curcillo was the first to use the method to remove a woman’s gallbladder through her bellybutton in May 2007. They’ve since used it for a number of different kinds of surgery.

Curcillo said the bellybutton procedure “will definitely make things better” for the donor. “A donor is one of the most altruistic people you’ll ever meet. He’s giving his kidney up. So anything you can do to make it better for that patient, they deserve it,” he said.

Dr. Louis R. Kavoussi, head of the Arthur Smith Institute for Urology of the North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System in New York and the co-author of an editorial in the journal, said the method needs to be studied to determine if patients fare better. “The reality is that nobody knows if this is an advance other than cosmetic,” said Kavoussi.

On Thursday, Scott Bolender, 39, of Washington Court House, received a kidney taken from his niece, Chanda Calentine, by way of her bellybutton.

“I’m just looking forward to getting out of bed,” Bolender said in a bedside interview Wednesday.

Bolender, the married father of six children, has been unable to work because of Wagner’s disease, an autoimmune disease that attacks the kidneys. He has been undergoing lifesaving dialysis since 2005.

Calentine, 30, of New York City, said she was confident in the promise of a “nearly scar-free” post-surgical bellybutton but was prepared for the alternative. “A week ago I got a one-piece (bathing suit),” she said with a laugh.

The procedure involves making a three-quarter inch incision in the interior of the bellybutton and inserting a tube-like port with several round entry points for inserting a camera and other tools into the belly.

The belly is inflated with carbon dioxide to provide maneuvering room. The kidney is then freed from connecting tissue, wrapped in a plastic bag and removed through the navel when the blood supply is cut, shrinking the organ’s fist-like size. The incision is expanded to about 11/2 inches to extract the kidney after the port is removed.

Kaster donated his kidney to his father, Phil Kaster, 61, of Canal Fulton, who was on dialysis for 10 months.

“When it’s family like that, you wouldn’t think twice,” he said. “I’m glad I’m able to give somebody their life back.”