The kidney donor and recipient usually stay in the same unit the
night before surgery, then move to separate units after the surgery.
As the donor, you can expect to stay in the hospital for two to
three days after surgery. We schedule a follow-up appointment with you
one week after discharge, with the focus on wound healing and pain management.
Additional follow-up appointments are scheduled at two months, six
months, one year, and two years after surgery.
Donor Candidacy Evaluation
The first step in preparing you to donate a kidney is to determine
whether you're a compatible donor.
- You'll undergo a thorough evaluation to determine
compatibility and ensure your safety.
- If the evaluation
finds you to be an incompatible donor, there are still options
available for donation, such as paired or chain
transplantation.
Preparing for Kidney Transplantation
We perform comprehensive evaluations of both the kidney donor and
recipient prior to transplantation in order to ensure the safety of
both of you.
There are no special courses of treatment you need to go through
prior to surgery like the recipient does. You'll be scheduled to
arrive at the hospital a day prior to surgery, along with the kidney
recipient, to undergo one final evaluation. Normally, you stay in the
same unit with the recipient the night before surgery.
For recipients, the hospital course for living donor kidney
transplantation is similar to that for patients receiving a kidney
from a deceased donor. However, you have the benefit of being able to
schedule the date of your surgery. Both donor and recipient are
admitted to the hospital one day prior to surgery for final evaluation
and testing.
On the day of surgery, the kidney donor undergoes surgery first,
with the recipient following immediately afterward.
Kidney Donor Surgical Procedure
Advances in medical technology in recent years have led to
increasingly less invasive procedures for kidney donors. More often
than not, donor kidneys are removed using laparoscopic techniques.
- During surgery, your physician makes a series of small
incisions in your lower abdomen and inserts the laparoscope – a tiny
tube with a light and a camera – to access the kidney.
- Your
doctor navigates and inspects the region on a TV-like monitor that
receives images from the camera.
- The laparoscope images are
magnified when they appear on the monitor, allowing your doctor to
see even greater tissue detail than he would during traditional
surgery.
The major advantage of laparoscopic kidney surgery is that your
doctor can now perform the same surgeries that used to require large
open incisions with just a few tiny incisions about the size of a
dime, and an 8 centimeter incision below your belly button. This
reduces pain and scarring, and significantly reduces the length of
your hospital stay and the time it takes for you to recover from surgery.
Care After Transplant
After surgery, you and the recipient stay in separate units. Your
hospital stay is normally three to five days and we strongly encourage
you to have visitors.
Upon discharge from the hospital, we arrange a follow-up appointment
for one week after you go home. This outpatient visit focuses on
issues of ongoing wound healing and pain management. But within a few
weeks, you should be able to return to normal activities and see no
changes in your life.