Living donor kidney transplant

Since organ donation rates are very low in our country, living-donor transplants are of great importance. Therefore, most of the kidney transplants in Turkey are performed from living kidney donors.

In our country, relatives of the patient, up to the 4^th degree, can be living kidney donors. If more distant relatives or people outside relatives want to donate a kidney to you, your file prepared shall be referred to the Ethics Committee. Upon approval by the Ethics Committee, the kidney transplantation is performed. Otherwise, transplantation will not be performed.

There are over 50.000 patients with renal failure in our country and half of these patients are on the waiting list for cadaveric transplantation. Unfortunately, the number of organ donations in our country is quite insufficient to meet this demand. Where there is a suitable kidney donor for a patient with renal failure, the patient can be transplanted directly and have a healthy life.

In living-donor kidney transplantation, one of the first priorities is to avoid any damage to the recipient. Therefore, detailed blood and urine tests and an abdominal computed tomography scanning of the kidney donor is performed. Only donors who are found to be healthy are considered for kidney transplantation.

In our Kidney Transplant Center, the process to prepare the recipient and donor for the living-donor kidney transplantation can be completed within 1 week.

Thanks to the “retroperitoneoscopy” technique developed by Prof. Barış Akin, MD and its successful implementation at our Kidney Transplant Center since 2009, it is now easier to donate kidney to your loved ones.

Through this new technique, removal of the kidney from volunteer donors for transplant can be performed safely and easily. During retroperitoneoscopy technique, small surgical incisions are made under video guidance. In this way, the post-operative pain of the kidney donor can be minimized and the patient can be discharged in two 2 days.