Despite the popularity of kidney tasnplantation in the current era, second and third kidney transplantation are not yet widely accepted and practiced. Each center has it’s own reguations and experiences and there is no accepted protocol for the third kidney transplantation. We report here our 15 years experience with the third kidney translantation.
Methods: This is a report of all third kidney transplantations performed in Baghiyatallah hospital, Tehran, Iran, between 1991 and 2006. Demographic data, surgical techniques, complications and outcomes are reported. From the 9 third kidney tranplant recipients, six were males. The mean age was 43.3 years (32-52). All operations performed by a midline incision and the grafts placed midline, in the intraperitoneal space. For arterial anastomosis, we used internal illiac, right common illiac, right external illiac and inferior mesentric artery in 4, 3, 1 and 1 cases, respectively. For venous anastomosis, we used vena cava, common illiac and external illiac veins in 3, 5 and 1 cases, respectively. During the follow up period, 6 grafts (66.6%) were functioning. Non of the graft rejections were due to surgical complications. Wound dehiscence occured in two patients. No other surgical complications including infection, lymphocele or hemorrhage were observed. The third kidney transplantation is a not fully explored field. Although the sample size in our report was low, the rate of complications seems not to be such higher than the first transplantation. Definning a srtandard protocol seems to be necessary.