5,000th kidney transplant at Vienna General Hospital

On 27th January 2009, a 28-year-old Lower Austrian received the 5,000th kidney transplant at Vienna General Hospital. This was yet another milestone which the hospital has reached in 2009 after “25 years of heart transplants” and prior to the 20th anniversary of the first lung transplant this autumn.

Groundwork laid in Vienna

It was Emmerich Ullmann who established the technical conditions for kidney transplants in Vienna in the year 1902, as a result of which the world’s first kidney could be successfully transplanted in Boston in 1954. This operation on identical twins was the starting point of a medical success story in which Vienna General Hospital played a significant role.

Optimistic outlook for kidney patients

More than 400,000 people in Austria suffer from chronic kidney diseases. Professor Ferdinand Mühlbacher, head of the University Clinic of Surgery and the Department of Transplantation, stresses the excellent medical treatment available despite the growing number of patients: “Although the number of patients with kidney diseases is rising due to people’s increasing life expectancy, the waiting time for a donor organ has remained virtually constant in Austria.” Patients wait an average of 2.8 years for a donor kidney, a very short time compared to Germany, where you may have to wait five to seven years for this lifesaving operation. At the present time there are 12,000 people on the waiting list of the Eurotransplant Foundation, the organization that acts as a go-between and coordinates the international exchange of donor organs across a region with 124 million inhabitants. Organs are allocated once the tissue characteristics of donor and recipient have been matched.

Vienna transplantation centre

In Austria, kidney transplants are carried out in Linz, Graz, Innsbruck and Vienna, with more than a third of these – about 150 a year – being performed by Vienna General Hospital. This makes the hospital one of the leading kidney transplantation centres internationally. A transplant not only improves the patient's quality of life, but also his chances of survival. A year after transplantation, more than 90 per cent of transplanted kidneys are still functioning, and after 12 to 15 years this figure is still 50 per cent. Significantly better results are achieved when the donor kidney comes from a living person (a relative of the patient, for instance). At Vienna General Hospital some 20 per cent of all kidneys come from living donors. Spain has headed the league for the number of organ donors for many years, whilst Austria has slid from second place after a long period of time into fifth place behind Belgium, Portugal and France. “The hospitals in these countries have special transplantation agents who keep the concept of transplants alive in people’s minds,” explains Mühlbacher admiringly.

Significantly improved patient treatment

The long case history of Sabine Schwenk – who received her first donor kidney in the 1980s – makes her an exceptional patient at Vienna General Hospital. After three donor organs had proved incompatible, years later she was able to benefit from the tremendous advances in the medical field. Today she enjoys an excellent quality of life with her fourth donor kidney. Mühlbacher affirms that the first transplant is usually successful today. Professor Walter Hörl, kidney specialist at the University Clinic of Internal Medicine, explains that these days it is even possible to transplant between different blood groups: “Originally it was not possible to carry out a transplant if donor had recipient did not have the same blood group.” In such cases today, they simply remove the antibody which could cause rejection of the organ from the recipient’s blood. This method has already been used six times at Vienna General Hospital, giving patients the prospect of even more speedy relief.

However, Vienna offers the highest standard of treatment even during the waiting period, when patients with kidney diseases are still dependent on dialysis treatment, a blood cleansing procedure. Sonja Wehsely, Executive City Councillor for Public Health and Social Affairs, on the major programme for the expansion of dialysis treatment in Vienna: “Last year we opened a dialysis competence centre at Wilhelminen Hospital, and this year will see the completion of a new dialysis centre on Langobardenstrasse.”

Mühlbacher sums up with food for thought: “5,000 kidney represent a great deal of work. This can only be achieved by smooth teamwork: perfect preparation, minimum anaesthetic risk, allocation of the right organ, and proper aftercare can only function with a dedicated team.”