Kidney Transplantation in Nigeria: A Single Centre’s Early Surgical Experience and Outcomes

With the rise in the population of patients with End-stage Renal Disease (ESRD) in Nigeria, there is an increased demand for Renal Replacement Therapy (RRT) including kidney transplantation (KT). We present our initial surgical experience and early outcomes with KT at a Nigerian transplant center over 2 years. A 2-year retrospective review of patients who underwent KT was done. Data of both kidney donors and recipients were recorded in designed proformas. Extracted information included demographic characteristics, side of open donor nephrectomy (ODN), recipient anatomy, surgical techniques and postoperative outcomes. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 21. A total of 210 patients had KT during the period under review. Donors had an age range of 19 to 53 years with a mean of 30.8 3 ± 8.43 years while recipients aged between 9 and 73 years with a mean of 45.97 ± 13.71 years. There were 190 (90.5%) male and 20 (9.5%) female donors. One hundred fifty-four recipients were males (73.3%) and 56 (26.7%) were females. Left ODN was performed in 152 (72.4%) of cases and the commonest indication for right ODN was multiple left renal arteries. The allograft was placed in the right iliac fossa in 187 (89.0%) recipients with the external iliac artery preferred for anastomosis with the allograft renal artery in end-to-side fashion in 182 (86.7%) cases. The internal iliac artery was used in end-to-end fashion anastomosis in 28 (13.3%) of cases. Ureteroneocystostomy using the Modified Lich-Gregoir technique over a double-J stent was performed in all but 5 patients who had uretero-ureterostomies. Significant peri-operative hemorrhage necessitating blood transfusion was experienced in 9 donors and 26 recipients. There was a low complication rate in kidney donors. Allograft renal artery thrombosis, venous thrombosis, and arterial pseudo-aneurysms were encountered in 3, 2 and 4 recipients respectively. Kidney transplantation can be safely and routinely carried out in Nigeria. The early surgical outlook of both kidney donors and recipients was found to be excellent in this study.