Two Hundred One Consecutive Living-Donor Nephrectomies

Abstract

ADVANCES IN organ transplantation have resulted in a dramatic increase in the demand for donor organs and an ever-widening gap between the number of patients on transplantation waiting lists and the supply of cadaver organs. United Network for Organ Sharing Scientific Registry data indicate that although the number of patients on waiting lists for kidney transplants more than doubled from 13943 to 31045 between 1988 and 1996, the number of actual kidney transplantations performed from cadaver donors increased by only 13% from 7208 to 8163 during the same period.¹ Consequently, living donors have assumed increasing importance in kidney transplantation, and indeed, from 1988 through 1996, the number of living kidney donors increased by 73% from 1809 to 3126 and now accounts for almost a third of all kidney transplantations performed in the United States.¹