Kidney Transplant

On your first visit, meet your entire transplant care team, including a nephrologist (kidney specialist), surgeon, dietitian, social worker and financial counselor, if needed. Come prepared with a list of questions and a support person to help you remember everything you and your team discuss.

You’ll undergo some testing to determine if you are a candidate for transplant. In addition to a physical exam and review of your entire health history, your doctors may also order:

• Blood tests
• Tissue typing
• Chest X-ray
• Colonoscopy
• Mammogram
• Pap smear
• Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test (for men)

The University Health Transplant Patient Selection Committee will review your health history and test results to determine if you are a candidate for transplant. Your transplant coordinator will notify you of the committee’s decision. You may be placed on the national transplant waitlist or will discuss alternative treatment options with your care team.

This involves receiving a kidney from a living donor. It may be someone you know or don't know. Living kidney donations often result in better outcomes in the short and long term. Plus, there is no need to be on the waitlist for a deceased donor, so you will get a transplant sooner.

When you are approved for transplant, you will be placed on the national kidney transplant waiting list through the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). The average wait time for a kidney is six years. While you are waiting, you can continue your regular health care with your provider and may want to look for a living donor.

Your care coordinator will notify you when a deceased donor has become available. You’ll head straight to University Hospital for your surgery, which takes between two and four hours. If you receive a deceased donor kidney, your surgeon will make an incision above your groin, remove your kidney and then attach the new kidney to your arteries, veins and ureter (tube that connects the kidney to the bladder).

If you receive a living donor kidney, you and the donor will both undergo minimally invasive surgery with the da Vinci ® Robotic Surgical System. This is less invasive than traditional kidney transplant surgery and allows for a faster recovery time.

After kidney transplant surgery, you will recover in the intensive care unit, where your family can visit you. Most people recover in the hospital for five or six days while our team monitors your new kidney’s function.

Before you go home, we’ll review transplant care education materials and medications with you and your family so you can feel confident about staying healthy and monitoring for post-transplant complications. We’ll also schedule you for your first post-transplant follow-up visit.