Page 6 - IKA_SUPPORT_WINTER_2016_WEB_Layout 1

National

Kidney

Transplant

Service

Annual Report 2015

The National Kidney Foreword

Transplant Service The National Kidney Transplant Service (NKTS) has come a long way
since the first deceased donor kidney transplant was performed in
Annual Report for 2015 Ireland in 1964. Originally based in the old Jervis St. Hospital,

was published in transplant activity in Ireland grew slowly to about 20 per year over
the subsequent decade. An important milestone was achieved 8 years
November. You can later with the successful completion of the first living donor kidney
read and download a transplant in 1972. Over the following 15 years, activity increased
steadily to about 50 transplants per year. The NKTS moved to its
copy from our website current home in Beaumont Hospital in 1987, a move that allowed the

www.ika.ie service to grow and mature, and activity soon reached levels similar to
today of approximately 140 transplants per year.
With a total of 153 approximately a third of all
I include here the transplants performed, 2015 activity. Nonetheless, significant
was a productive year for the challenges remain.
Foreword to the Report NKTS, and overall transplant First, the numbers joining the
which gives a good activity levels have been transplant waiting list continues
to grow. With 171 new patients
consistent with recent years.
overall view of the However these figures conceal a added to the waiting list in
major shift in the profile of 2015, bringing the total number
activity generated from kidney transplantation in Ireland. waitlisted to in excess of 560,
In particular, the rate of the rate of transplantation is still
Beaumont Hospital and deceased organ donation has not keeping pace with demand.
Second, the trend of fewer
I have also included steadily decreased, albeit due to deceased donor organ donation
a number of welcome factors,
some key highlight most notably improvements in is set to continue, and this brings
road safety and neurosurgical with it the requirement to
statistics. care. consider increasingly marginal
Growth in the living donor organs for transplantation. This
programme in Beaumont has will undoubtedly impact on
partially offset this decline, and transplant outcomes.
Mark Murphy the number of living donor Lastly, an increasing
kidney transplants has increased proportion of patients awaiting
steadily over the past decade kidney transplant are ‘highly
such that they now make up sensitised’, meaning there are

6 IKA S UPPORT W INTER 2016