Post Operation
The transplant surgery takes about three hours. The donor kidney will be placed in the lower abdomen and its blood vessels connected to arteries and veins in the recipient's body. When this is complete, blood will be allowed to flow through the kidney again. The final step is connecting the ureter from the donor kidney to the bladder. In most cases, the kidney will soon start producing urine.
Depending on its quality, the new kidney usually begins functioning immediately. Living donor kidneys normally require 3–5 days to reach normal functioning levels, while cadaveric donations stretch that interval to 7–15 days. Hospital stay is typically for 4–7 days. If complications arise, additional medications (diuretics) may be administered to help the kidney produce urine.
Immunosuppressant drugs are used to suppress the immune system from rejecting the donor kidney. These medicines must be taken for the rest of the patient's life. The most common medication regimen today is a cocktail of tacrolimus, mycophenolate, and prednisone. Some patients may instead take cyclosporine, sirolimus, or azathioprine. Cyclosporine, considered a breakthrough immunosuppressive when first discovered in the 1980s, ironically causes nephrotoxicity and can result in iatrogenic damage to the newly transplanted kidney. Blood levels must be monitored closely and if the patient seems to have declining renal function, a biopsy may be necessary to determine whether this is due to rejection or cyclosporine intoxication.
Read more about this topic: Kidney Transplantation
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