Kidney Transplant Unit

Clinical Leads:  Dr N Torpey, Consultant Nephrologist and Mr D Talbot, Consultant Transplant Surgeon

Kidney transplants are one of the success stories of the last 50 years and have been performed in Newcastle since 1967. The adult kidney transplant unit for the Northern Region is based at Freeman Hospital on Ward 6A performing around 100 kidney transplants every year.

Kidney transplants may be from deceased donors or from live donors. Deceased donors may be either ‘heartbeating’ when patients have suffered irreversible brain injury such that their hearts will stop beating or they may be from ‘non-heartbeating’ donors who have suffered a cardiac arrest from which they cannot be revived.

Live donors are usually a close relative or friend of the patient but may be unknown to them. In Newcastle, about half of kidney transplants are from deceased ‘heartbeating’ donors. Half are divided between ‘non-heartbeating’ deceased donors and live donors.

Kidney transplants are now very successful in the UK so that after one year, 94% of kidneys in living donor transplants are still functioning well and 88% of kidneys from patients who have died are still functioning well. The success rates in Newcastle are very good and are comparable to these national success rates.