[General aspects of kidney removal from donors with cardiovascular arrest]

The increasing list of patients waiting for an organ transplantation shows clearly the shortage of donor organs at disposal. This shortage is particularly high in the field of kidney allotransplantation. As the nephrectomy in non-heart beating (NHB) donor is technically practicable in most of our hospitals, the aim of this contribution is to pass on further informations about the nephrectomy to those surgeons who are interested in the procedure. The first part of the paper explains the different facts of the end stage renal disease in Switzerland and of transplantation activity. We focus then on the conditions and preparations of the nephrectomy in NHB donor, the exact technique of the operation and the organ perfusion. As it is shown by different studies, the long-term results of NHB donor kidneys are good. The nephrectomy in NHB donor is an effective method to solve kidney shortage.