Experience over the past 3 1/2 years in transplanting 94 cadaver kidneys to 78 patients at The Cleveland Clinic indicates the approach "is sufficiently successful to encourage further work in this field," Ralph A. Straffon, MD, told the Urology Section.
Dr. Straffon, who is head of the clinic's urology department, said 35 of the 78 patients (almost 45%) have functioning grafts, 4 more are alive without functioning kidneys through hemodialysis, and 39 have died.
In live donor renal transplants at the institution over the same period, he continued, 29 were done in 25 patients and there are 17 functioning grafts (68%).
"We performed our first renal transplant at The Cleveland Clinic Hospital in January 1963," he recalled.
"As of June 1 of this year, 123 transplants have been performed on 103 patients."
Failures In First Year
Many of the failures were in the first year of experience, he said. Of