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Kidney Transplant

Kidney transplant is a surgical procedure to implant a healthy kidney into a patient with kidney disease or kidney failure.

The kidney transplant may be taken from a living donor or from one who has recently died.

Symptoms

Kidney transplant may be recommended for patients with kidney failure caused by:

Severe, uncontrollable high blood pressure (hypertension)

Infections

Diabetes mellitus

Glomerulonephritis

Kidney transplants may not be recommended for patients who have any of the following conditions:

Heart, lung and liver disease.

Other life-threatening diseases.

An infection (such as TB or osteomyelitis)

Difficulty with taking medications several times each day.

Kidney transplants require life-long treatment with medications that suppress the immune response (immunosuppressive therapy). Transplants from a blood-related living donor are seen normally as a better option (in terms of avoiding rejection) than from another donor.

Around 90% of transplanted kidneys are functioning two years after the operation.

The main problem and complication with this operation as with any organ transplant, is the possibility of graft rejection.

Recovery

The patient is encouraged to resume normal activities as soon as possible after surgery.

The major obstacles for kidney transplants are the problem of finding a suitable donor, coping with potential rejection of the organ by the immune system, and cost.

The recovery period is normally around a month and the average hospital period is around 1 week.

As with any organ donation the risk of rejection is always there but in recent years this has become an operation with a high success rate and the vast majority of patients are soon enjoying life again and further advances in medical procedures should see the excellent success rate improve further.