Living unrelated donor renal transplantation

Abstract

Since kidney transplantation has become a highly accepted and successful therapy for chonic renal failure patients, the demand has increased very rapidly creating a serious shortage in organ supply. It is generally agreed that living related donor kidney transplantation is the first choice for its high success rate, with cadaver donor taking second place and living unrelated donors the third. However, insufficient supply of cadaveric kidney and the good results obtained in patient and graft survivals with the living unrelated donor renal transplantation, it is now widely recognized that living genetically unrelated but emotionally related donors is an acceptable option (1, 2, 3, 4) although some transplant centers refuse kidney transplantation from non-genetically related donors for ethical reasons. Since insufficient cadaveric kidneys continue to be a major problem in our country and other Near Eastern countries, a third organ source (the living unrelated donor) has emerged as an alternative (3, 4). However, some of the so-called unrelated donors are second degree relatives, while spouses are the usual source, since they are the most affected persons for the rehabilitation of chronic renal failure recipients. The other unrelated donor group are emotionally related by friendship. In this study, we present our experience concerning 80 living unrelated kidney transplants with DST and plasmaphoresis.