[Update on the outcome of kidney transplantation at the Free University of Brussels].

The present analysis shows that the results of renal transplantation at the "Université libre de Bruxelles" still have improved in recent years: patient and graft survival at 5 years has risen to 99% and 86% respectively during the 1995-1999 period. This progress is primarily related to the use of less deleterious and more potent immunosuppressants. However, graft failures due to causes other than rejection or patient's death remained unchanged. Among transplantations from living related donors, those from parents yield poorer results than those from children or from one-haploidentical brothers and sisters. Four factors influence cadaveric graft survival: immunosuppression, quality of the graft, donor's age and HLA compatibility, in decreasing order of statistical significance. The immunosuppressive protocols used since 1996 appear particularly promising: thanks to them, 3-year graft survival rate presently reaches 97%.