TURIN. Kidney transplants: the City of Health at 4 thousand. An extraordinary achievement, which refers to a set of factors: the high rate of organ donation, thanks to the generosity of the Piedmontese, the commitment of the Resuscitation Centers, the increase in transplantation from living donors, the strengthening of enrollment in list with enlargement to increasingly complex patients, the company policy of strengthening the program.
This is the exceptional stage of a story that began in November 40 years ago and which led to the “A. Vercellone ”delle Molinette in first place in Italy and among the most prominent European Centers. In these days, in addition to the milestone of 4,000 operations, the 400th kidney transplant from a living donor in Piedmont was performed.
The reasons for a success
“It is not just a question of numbers but also of the quality of the results: the data just published by the National Transplant Center of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità show how Turin is a leader in Italy in complex transplants both from the surgical and the point of view clinician with important results – explains Professor Luigi Biancone (head of the Kidney Transplant Program at the Molinette hospital in Turin) -. On the other hand, since the beginning, the philosophy of the Center has been to grow and offer this therapeutic possibility to as many patients as possible, trying to cope with their problems that often led to exclusion from transplantation in other Centers. One reason for the success also lies in the regional network of Nephrology and Dialysis Centers, whose collaboration is essential for referring patients to transplantation and for following them after transplantation “.
The types of transplant
As of October 31, 2021, there are already 4,016 kidney transplants, of which 165 transplants of both kidneys, 47 kidney transplants from non-hearted donors, 59 combined kidney and pancreas transplants and 85 combined kidney and liver transplants (thanks to collaboration with the Liver Transplant Center directed by Professor Renato Romagnoli), 5 for kidney and heart and 1 for lung and kidney (thanks to the collaboration with the Heart Transplant Center directed by Professor Mauro Rinaldi).
As a living donor
The commitment to enhance kidney transplantation from living donors is increasing (in these days the 247th transplant performed in Molinette – with 153 in Novara – has allowed us to reach 400 in Piedmont). Performed thanks to the minimally invasive kidney removal from the donor and also available in the presence of incompatibility of the blood group, it is able to offer the absolute best option in the field of kidney transplantation with greater prospects of success than transplantation from a cadaveric donor, and in able to cancel the need for dialysis and waiting on the list. The General Director of the City of Health, Dr. Giovanni La Valle, is legitimately satisfied: “A transplant is not only the work of the surgeon who performs it, but it is the expression of effective organization, of good functioning and high professionalism of the entire hospital “.
Beyond dialysis
Thanks to this intense transplantation activity, in Piedmont – among the first regions in Italy – the number of renal patients treated with transplantation is surpassing that of patients treated with dialysis, approaching overtaking – according to data from the Regional Observatory for Disease chronic renal.
The team
The organizational structure is based on the synergistic collaboration between the nephrological medical-nursing team of the University Nephrology Dialysis and Transplantation (directed by Professor Luigi Biancone), which takes care of the clinical management of patients both in the pre and post-transplant phase (and performs coordination functions of the program) with hospital vascular surgery (directed by doctor Aldo Verri), with university urology (directed by professor Paolo Gontero) for the surgical part and hospital resuscitation (directed by doctor Roberto Balagna).
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