Abstract
BACKGROUND: At our center, surgical modifications to the conventional kidney transplant technique were developed with two goals in mind: to minimize the risk of developing post-transplant urologic/vascular/other surgical complications, and to simultaneously eliminate the need for initial ureteral stent placement and surgical drainage. METHODS: Here, the authors describe these modifications along with (what we believe are) their advantages over the conventional technique: creating an abdominal flap for easier abdominal closure (reflecting the parietal peritoneum from the abdominal wall), mobilizing the bladder before transplant (creating more space for bladder dissection, allowing it to move upward during abdominal wall closure), minimizing the dissection of iliac vessels to only anterior lymphatic tissue (attempting to minimize the incidence of fluid collections), using plastic arterial vascular bulldog clamps (causing less trauma to the iliac artery), performing vascular anastomosis of the renal artery first (making it easier for the surgeon to perform the anastomoses), creating longer ureteral spatulation, and inclusion of bladder mucosa along with some detrusor muscle layer in performing the ureteral anastomosis (attempting to minimize the incidence of urologic complications). Of note, no initial ureteral stent placement or surgical drainage was used. The authors report our experience during the first 12 months post-transplant of a single transplant surgeon who used each of these modifications among 707 consecutive recipients of kidney-alone transplants at our center since 2014. RESULTS: During the first 12 months post-transplant, 2.3% (16/707) of patients developed a urologic complication; only 1.0% (7/707) required surgical repair of their original ureteroneocystostomy. Additionally, 2.7% (19/707) developed a vascular complication; 8.8% (62/707) developed some other type of surgical complication (wound complication, lymphocele development, or development of a peri-renal hematoma or peri-renal collection). These overall results were advantageous when compared with other studies. CONCLUSION: The authors believe that this modified kidney transplant technique clearly helped in reducing post-transplant risks of developing urologic/vascular/other surgical complications. Importantly, these results were achieved without initial ureteral stent placement or surgical drainage.