A pediatric living donor kidney transplant program is active at  ISMETT. The program allows to significantly reduce the waiting time while on dialysis, and in many cases even allowing to skip this step. Avoiding the start of the dialysis can be a great benefit, especially in pediatric age, when the body is still developing. In these cases, a pre-emptive kidney transplant is performed, i.e., before dialysis is started, when the child has a stage 4 chronic kidney failure. 

One of the main advantages of a living donor kidney transplant is the reduction of the ischemic damage associated with kidney procurement surgery. A living-related transplant is a scheduled intervention, and the time from kidney procurement from the donor to its positioning in the recipient is minimal. Usually in the event of a pediatric living donor kidney transplant, the donor is one of the child’s parents or relative aged over 18 years. Candidates to donation are always studied exhaustively to ascertain their good clinical conditions and the absence of contraindications to donation, to prevent compromising their renal function.  

The donor’s assessment is performed by a multidisciplinary medical and surgical team, to guarantee the utmost safety to the donor candidate.  A psychological consult is also performed with different sessions and interviews. At ISMETT, the living donor kidney procurement is performed with minimally-invasive laparoscopic techniques that allow for the best and fastest recovery for the patient after the procedure.

ISMETT has gained significant experience over the past 20 years, performing over 400 kidney transplants of which 50% from living donors.