Kidney transplantation
A kidney transplant is the only curative treatment option for end-stage renal insufficiency. Common causes of terminal renal insufficiency are Diabetes mellitus, hypertension (high blood pressure), glomerulonephritis, interstitial nephritis, and polycystic kidney degeneration.
A kidney transplant must always be considered if a patient requires dialysis, because compared with dialysis it leads to better survival rates and much better quality of life.
Patients who are residents of countries outside the Eurotransplant area (Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, Luxembourg, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary) will not receive a cadaveric kidney transplant via Eurotransplant and must bring a matching living donor.
At the UKE, kidney transplant surgery is a routine, albeit difficult, operation. A kidney transplantation is a medium-size surgery we perform more than 80 times a year. In addition to transplants for adult patients, we also perform pediatric kidney transplants. By 2018 we performed 2,700 kidney transplants.
Almost all patients with severe kidney problems, including dialysis patients, stand to benefit from a transplant. There is no absolute age limit for transplantation. It is important that diseases that could endanger the patient during or after transplantation are excluded during a detailed preliminary examination. Such conditions include particularly severe untreated infections, uncured tumors, and severe heart, vascular, and pulmonary diseases.
Please direct your treatment request to the International Office of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.
