Renal transplantation again at the University children's hospital of Belgrade

Abstract

After a 15-year break, pediatric renal transplantation restarted again at the University Children's Hospital of Belgrade. Owing to this, best relationship between the number of new patients with terminal renal failure and those with functioning graft has been recently achieved, and mortality of children with terminal renal failure has been decreased to zero. The aim of this paper was to show the recent results achieved in pediatric renal transplantation at the University Children's Hospital in Belgrade. During the period from June 2001 till June 2003,10 patients, 6 boys and 4 girls, aged 5 to 15 years (9.5± 3.8) underwent transplantation of kidney harvested from a live matched donor. Out of these, two patients underwent pre-emptive transplantation. Urine from the graft started immediately after anastomosis was performed, while serum creatinine normalized after 15 to 120 hours. Daclizumab was the most commonly used as immunosuppressive induction agent, but the maintenance immunosuppressive therapy consisted of Imuran or Mycophenolate Mofetil (MMF), Neoral or Tacrolimus (FK 506) and prednisone. At the end of follow up, after 18.7±8.4 months, nine patients had normal, and one patient slightly decreased renal graft function. Growth after transplantation and nutritional status were improved in all patients, and all of them achieved complete psychosocial rehabilitation. These results showed that the University Children's Hospital in Belgrade fulfilled all necessary conditions to become a specialized Center for Pediatric Renal Transplantation.

Keywords

• renal transplantation
• University Children's Hospital in Belgrade
• pediatric terminal renal failure