Kuwait is one of the founding members of MESOT. It hosted the second congress of MESOT in 1990, and is hosting the 10th congress to be held in November 2006. Its population was 2.5 millions by December 2005. There are 2 nephrology units, 5 dialysis centers, and a single center for organ transplantation. At present, the organ transplantation activity is limited to kidneys, cornea, and bone marrow, and is offered free of charge to Kuwaiti citizens and non-Kuwaiti residents. Kuwait law on Organ Transplantation was passed in 1987 allowing living and cadaveric organ transplantation.
Kidney transplantation: The incidence of ESRD in Kuwait is 120/m/year in adults, and 18/m/year in children. Kidney transplantation programme was started in 1979, since then more than 1200 kidney transplantation procedures were performed, with annual activity of 80-100 transplants/year in the last few years. The first cadaveric kidney transplantation was performed in 1981. With about 40 transplants per million per year, Kuwait enjoys the highest rate of kidney transplants in the Middle East and Asia and the 5th highest rate in the world. 30% of kidney grafts are obtained from cadaveric donors, and 14% of recipients are children. The obtained results are comparable to those reported by larger European and American centers. Laparoscopic donor nephrectomy was started in 2005 and has become the standard technique for donor nephrectomy.
Bone marrow transplantation: An active autologous bone marrow transplantation programme was started in April 2000, and since then 107 procedures were performed.
Liver transplantation: All the basic preparations are completed to launch a local programme for liver transplantation from cadaveric donors in the next few months.