Kidney Transplantation in Slovenia From 1970 to 2015

This report gives an overview of kidney transplantation in Slovenia, a country with a population of 2.1 million and one transplant center. The establishment of a national transplant organization resulted in the acceptance of Slovenia into Eurotransplant (ET) in 2000. Between 1970 and 2015, 1158 kidney transplantations were performed. From 1970 to 2009, 126 patients were transplanted from living related donors, only two in the ET period. From 1986 to 1999, 239 patients received kidney grafts from deceased donors, while 793 patients were transplanted from deceased donors after joining ET. In ET period, 1- and 5-year patient survival rates were 98.1% and 93.8%, and the concomitant graft survival rates were 94.3% and 87.5%, respectively. During the ET period, the number of deceased donor kidney transplants per year was three times higher than in the 14 years before. Patient and graft survival rates have been very good and entirely comparable to those in large reports.