Living-donor renal transplantation: the recommendations of a young nephrologists to a young nephropatic patient

Abstract

Renal transplantation is the gold-standard renal replacement therapy for patients affected by advanced renal failure; specifically, the living-donor transplantation program represents the best therapeutic option for young patients. It is well known that avoiding dialysis can significantly reduce comorbidities and increase patient survival. However, today in Italy the living-donor transplantation is still less common than the cadaveric one. Possible reasons may be related to the absence of a well-standardized pre-dialysis clinical followup and to the insufficient information provided to patients about the ongoing Italian transplant programs (including pre-emptive living transplantation). Therefore, I strongly believe that, in order to improve this fundamental program, a social and a psychological support should be introduced to improve the timing and characteristics of the clinical follow-up of patients with end-stage renal failure and for the optimization of the pre-transplant clinical evaluations, thus reducing time and costs. Finally, I think that new regional or national projects aimed at increasing living donations should be encouraged.