Kidney transplantation in Pittsburgh: experience and innovations

1. The introduction of combined CsA and steroid treatment as the baseline immunosuppressive medication significantly enhanced the results of kidney transplantation in our series. But various other preexisting recipient or donor conditions may still have an important effect on kidney transplant survival and should not go unrecognized. 2. Living-related kidney transplants were almost totally abandoned at our institution. Reasons for this approach are the increased availability of cadaveric donor organs, the improved results with cadaveric transplants under CsA and the possible risks to the living donors. 3. Combined liver/kidney transplants have been shown to offer a favorable treatment modality for patients with endstage liver and renal failure. 4. A newly developed center-oriented Transplant Information Management System (TIMY) significantly facilitates the clinical and research tasks in our department. 5. An integrated, computerized scoring system for equitable allocation of donor organs has proven to be highly effective during routine clinical use.