News

Live kidney transplants hit UK record - 21 May 2009

A landmark 300 live kidney transplants have been performed at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, making us the largest centre for the procedure in the country.

Surgeons at Hammersmith Hospital use a home-grown surgical technique called finger-assisted nephrectomy, which leaves patients with a tiny 5cm scar and a recovery time of just two to three days.

Professor Nadey Hakim, consultant surgeon, who pioneered the technique, said: “Compared to open surgery and laparoscopic surgery our procedure is much quicker and has excellent outcomes for patients. Not only is it less invasive, but also much more economic than conventional techniques.”

Transplants are performed on a range of donor-recipient ‘pairs’, including friends, relatives and couples (such as David Fargus, pictured left with his wife Alison Fargus, to whom he donated his kidney) or via altruistic donation.

The survival rate of live transplanted kidneys after five years is around 98 percent. And up to 88 percent of patients remain off dialysis for ten years or more following transplantation.

Hammersmith is a designated centre for high-risk patients such as the elderly, people who have kidneys with multiple arteries and patients with a high body mass index (BMI).

Live donor coordinators at the hospital also successfully match ABO incompatible pairs – where one patient has blood group O and receives a transplanted organ from a patient with blood group A.

Jen McDermott, live donor co-coordinator, said: “We have worked hard to make our ABO programme a success and to enable us to help individuals that five years ago we would have had to turn down for live donor transplantation.”

For further information on the living donor programme at Hammersmith Hospital call 020 7886 1998 or 020 8383 8145.

Notes to editors:
• Case studies available on request
• The West London Renal and Transplant Centre is the largest living donor transplant centre in the country. It is the largest facility in Europe for nephrology, dialysis and transplantation
• It covers all of west London including the boroughs of Brent, Harrow, Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster, Ealing, Hounslow, Hillingdon and parts of Hertfordshire, with a combined population of more than 2.5 million
• The centre has satellite dialysis units located at Charing Cross, Central Middlesex, Ealing, Northwick Park, St Charles, Watford General, Hayes and West Middlesex hospitals. Patients may visit a satellite dialysis unit of their choice following an initial consultation at the West London Renal and Transplant Centre
• The survival rate for transplants from live donors, especially close relatives, is much higher than transplants from people who have died. Because there are over 5,000 people on the national cadaveric waiting list for a kidney, live donors can typically have their transplants quicker
• Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust comprises Charing Cross, Hammersmith Hospital, Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea, St Mary’s and Western Eye hospitals.  It is the largest Trust in the country, and in partnership with Imperial College London, is the UK’s first academic health science centre (AHSC) 
• The AHSC was created to take the research discoveries it makes and translate them into new and improved treatments and techniques to directly benefit patients throughout the Trust

ENDS 
For more information please contact:
Caroline Weller
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust press office
Telephone: 020 7886 1331
Email: caroline.weller@imperial.nhs.uk