On Wednesday April 21st, over 600 people attended the Circle for Life: Renal 3000 program to celebrate the three thousandth kidney transplant to be performed at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center (NYPH/CUMC). The first kidney transplant at the center was performed in 1969. The three thousandth was performed on April 6, 2010.
Kidney transplants can be performed with both with deceased- and living-donor organs.
Rejection in any organ transplant is expected as the immune system’s function is protect the body from viruses, bacteria, and foreign objects. To help prevent this, patients and donors are serotyped to find closely matching human leukocyte antigens. Immunosuppressive drug therapy is used on conjunction with serotyping to reduce the effectiveness of the recipient’s immune system.1 Today, some living donor transplants can be performed between sero-incompatible donors if the recipient’s blood is first “cleaned” of antibodies through a process known as plasmaphereis.2
The first kidney transplant recipients in the 1950s, did not have the advantage of immunosuppressant drugs. Procedures were performed between identical twin donor/recipient pairs to help prevent rejection. Once immunosuppressant drug therapy was approved for use in 1964, deceased donor transplants became possible. This greatly increased the number of organs available for transplantation.3
For more information about the Renal and Pancreatic Transplant Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center (NYPH/CUMC) please visit our site at www.columbiakidneytransplant.org.
1 “Transplantation Rejection,” in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia; (Wikimedia Foundation Inc., updated 21 April 2010, 8:52 UTC) [encyclopedia on-line]; available from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transplant_rejection; retrieved 27 April 2010.
2 “Renal and Pancreatic Transplants: Incompatible Live Donors” on Columbia University Department of Surgery [web site]; available from www.columbiasurgery.org/cli/kidneypancreastx/incompatible.html; retrieved 27 April 2010.
3 “Kidney Transplantation,” in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia; (Wikimedia Foundation Inc., updated 17 April 2010, 23:59 UTC) [encyclopedia on-line]; available from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_transplantation;
retrieved 24 April 2010.
