Kidney-Tx, NTX, NTPL = kidney transplant, renal transplantation A kidney transplant is the surgical implantation of a donor organ into a recipient. Kidney transplantation is required in cases of terminal renal dysfunction (terminal renal insufficiency). A distinction is made between live and cadaver donation, whereby in the former case relatives or close relatives donate one of their kidneys, in the latter case the organ comes from a dead person.
Because the foreign kidney does not contain the same genetic material as the patient’s own, a patient who has received a transplant usually has to take drugs for the rest of his life that deliberately weaken the immune system to prevent rejection. However, the chances of success have increased considerably in recent years. In addition to kidney transplantation, dialysis is also used to treat kidney failure.
In dialysis, the patient’s blood is cleansed of harmful substances because the kidneys can no longer perform this task. However, the patient must have his kidneys cleaned by a machine several times a week. In general, a surgical intervention, i.e. a kidney transplant, is associated with a high gain in quality of life for the patient, since the patient is more unrestricted in his or her everyday functions and can participate in social life to a far greater extent than a patient on dialysis.
In 2008, 1184 kidneys (cadaveric organs) were donated for kidney transplantation in Germany. From living donations, 609 organs were transplanted in the same year. On average, this means about 2000 transplanted kidneys per year.
In the USA, on the other hand, there are about 25,000 transplanted kidneys per year. Kidney transplantation depends on individual body characteristics and the activity of the immune system. Kidney transplantation is a cadaver donation in 80% of cases, whereas in 20% it is a living donation.
In 2008, the waiting list for a donor kidney from Germany included a total of 7703 patients. The first kidney transplant was performed on a dog by Emerich Ullmann in 1902. The first human kidney transplantation was performed in 1947 in Boston by David H. Hume, but was not successful due to a rejection of the donated kidney.
Six years later, in 1953, Jean Hamburger was able to perform the first successful human kidney transplantation in the world in Paris on an underage boy. The child survived for several days with a limited functioning kidney. Joseph Murray carried out a successful transplantation on twins in Boston just under a year later.
The twins survived for eight years. In 1962 he performed a kidney transplant followed by treatment with immunosuppressive drugs, so that he successfully transplanted a kidney between two non-blood relatives. Rheinhald Nagel and Wilhelm Brosig performed the first successful kidney transplant in Germany in 1964. Günther Kirste made the breakthrough in Freiburg in 2004, when he and his team performed a live transplant in a patient with incompatible blood groups.
