Renal transplantation in Slovenia after joining Eurotransplant.

BACKGROUND: This report presents data on renal transplantation in Slovenia before and after joining Eurotransplant (ET).

METHODS: Slovenia (population: 2 million) has one renal transplant centre. The establishment of an appropriate national transplantation organization resulted in an increase in transplantations and the acceptance of Slovenia into ET at the beginning of 2000. Current immunosuppression is composed of cyclosporin (Neoral), mycophenolate mofetil, methylprednisolone and anti-interleukin-2 receptor monoclonal antibodies.

RESULTS: By the end of 2004, 607 renal transplantations had been performed. From 1970 to 1998, 124 patients were given living related donor kidneys. From 1986 to 1999, 239 patients received renal grafts from deceased donors. From 2000 to 2004, 244 patients were transplanted from deceased donors. In 2004, 55 renal transplantations were carried out. One hundred and forty one (57.8%) renal grafts were shipped from other ET countries. The HLA-antigen mismatch of 2.8+/-1.1 was not significantly different from what it was before 2000. Up to 31 December 2004, the 1- and 3-year patient survival rates were 98.3% and 96.0%, respectively. The concomitant graft survival rates were 95.8% and 93.5%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: In the ET era, the number of deceased donor renal transplants per year was 2.8 times higher than in the 14 years before. In 2004, we reached the average number of deceased donor renal transplants per million population of ET. Although tissue compatibility in these recipients was not significantly better than it was before the ET era, it would have been much worse had we not joined ET. Short- and medium-term results in the ET era have been entirely comparable to those in large reports.