Overview

A donor nephrectomy is a surgical procedure to remove a healthy kidney from a living donor for transplant into a person whose kidneys no longer function properly.

The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs located on each side of the spine just below the rib cage. Each one is about the size of a fist. The kidneys' main function is to filter and remove excess waste, minerals and fluid from the blood by producing urine.

People with end-stage renal disease need to have waste removed from their bloodstream through a machine (hemodialysis), via a procedure to filter the blood (peritoneal dialysis), or via a kidney transplant.

Living-donor kidney transplant is an alternative to deceased-donor kidney transplant. A living donor can donate one of his or her two kidneys, and the remaining kidney is able to perform the necessary functions.

The first successful organ transplant in the U.S. was made possible by a living kidney donor in 1954 and used traditional (open) surgery for the kidney donation surgery. Currently, the vast majority of kidney donation surgeries are performed using minimally invasive laparoscopic techniques and also robot-assisted technology.

Living kidney donation via donor nephrectomy is the most common type of living-donor procedure. About 5,000 living kidney donations are reported each year in the U.S.