The Clínic surpasses 1,000 living donor kidney transplants

The Hospital Clínic de Barcelona has achieved a new historic milestone, becoming the first in all of Spain to perform 1,000 living donor kidney transplants. According to the general director of the National Transplant Organization (ONT), Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, very few hospitals in Europe and worldwide have surpassed the thousand mark. The continuous commitment to innovation largely explains this figure, with 700 of these operations performed in the last 15 years, through the use of new less invasive technologies, such as laparoscopy or, more recently, surgical robots.

The first living donor kidney transplant at Hospital Clínic was performed in 1965. That year, the first deceased donor transplant was also performed, which now number 4,000. The recipients are patients with kidney diseases, preventing them from having to undergo dialysis. The new kidney must allow them to restore the functions of this organ, such as purifying toxins from the blood or balancing the amount of water and minerals. "It is the best therapeutic alternative," emphasizes the hospital's general director, Josep Maria Campistol.

Likewise, donors can be healthy family members or friends of the patient, with two perfectly functioning kidneys. Of the 1,000 transplants performed at Clínic, 67.4% were women. To be a donor, one must undergo a series of tests to check for compatibility with the recipient, such as a medical check-up, a complete blood test with serologies and blood group determination, and imaging tests, such as an angio-CT scan to study the anatomy of the kidneys.

To mark this milestone, the public awareness campaign Mil trasplantes, mil historias (A Thousand Transplants, A Thousand Stories) has been launched, which tells the story of generosity and love of eight donor and recipient couples to encourage this type of donation. It has the institutional support of the ONT and the Catalan Transplant Organization (OCATT), and the collaboration of Novartis, Chiesi, Abex, Glycorex, Ader, and Verdi cinemas.

At the presentation were Natividad Milián and José Milián, protagonists of one of these stories. The two siblings underwent a kidney transplant at the end of February. For her, having a compatible kidney for her brother was like winning the lottery. And he only has good words for Clínic and its human team, after a quick and easy recovery.