Kidney Transplant Program

Kindey Transplantation

Currently more than 400,000 people in the U.S. are living with kidney failure and depend on daily or weekly dialysis treatments to survive. At Scripps, our goal is to help people eliminate the need for dialysis with a successful kidney transplant —even those people who have been turned down at other facilities due to complicated health conditions, age or other factors.

Since 1990, Scripps Center for Organ & Cell Transplantation has performed more than 750 transplants with success rates that continue to match or exceed the national average. Our program helps patients spend less time on the transplant waiting list by using numerous protocols not available at every transplant facility. These include:

Extended criteria donor kidney transplants
Older patients who choose to receive kidneys from donors close to their own age may have a shorter waiting period.

ABO-incompatible kidney transplants
Today it is possible to transplant across blood types provided special protocols are followed.

Cross-match positive kidney transplants
Our program uses techniques which can, in many cases, remove the antibodies that would cause a transplanted organ to be rejected.

Kidney transplants for patients with HIV disease
Our team can help patients with stable HIV infection manage the complex drug interactions between transplant and HIV medications.

Living donor transplants
A living donor kidney transplant occurs when kidney is donated from a healthy, living donor to a waiting recipient.

Kidney donor exchange
Potential donors who are unable to donate to their own loved ones may donate to each other’s loved ones in what is essentially a “swap,” or exchange. In December 2009, Scripps Center for Organ & Cell Transplantation was the first in San Diego to perform a three-paired kidney exchange between six people.