Kidney transplant patients at Ullevål Hospital 1963-83

In the period November 1963 to July 1983, 118 patients received a kidney transplant at Ullevål Hospital. All future kidney transplants were subsequently performed at Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet. The purpose of our study is to present demographic data and show patient and graft survival from the first patient cohort of kidney transplant recipients in Norway.

The patients were identified in surgical protocols from Ullevål Hospital and the Norwegian Renal Registry using follow-up data up to December 2016. We recorded the patients' age and sex, cause of renal failure, donor characteristics, patient and graft survival, number of retransplants and cause of death.

118 patients: 38 women and 80 men, aged 14-67 years, received a transplant during the reference period. The most common indicators for transplantation were chronic glomerulonephritis (n = 61), chronic pyelonephritis (n = 20) and polycystic kidney disease (n = 14). Seventy-two patients (61 %) received a kidney from a deceased donor. After one year, 94 of the patients were still living (80 %), after five years, 66 of the patients (56 %) were still living, and after twenty years, the figure was 34 (29 %). Cardiovascular disease was the most common cause of death. The median graft survival was 3.8 years (quartile range 14.4 years). Thirty-two patients underwent retransplantation.

Even in this pioneering era, patient survival rates and the functional life of donated kidneys were acceptable.