Advances in kidney transplantation: 1985-1995.

Graphs and tables published 10 years ago in our Clinical Kidney Transplants 1985 book are compared to current analyses. Impressive progress is apparent over the past decade. During this period, the effects of factors such as transfusion and the duration of first grafts on second grafts have disappeared, while the effects of factors such as cold ischemia time, regrafts and original disease have diminished in magnitude. Other factors, including HLA matching, donor age and race, continue to exhibit significant influence. It should be emphasized that most of these comparisons apply to one-year graft survival. Thus, our attention must now turn to factors which influence 10-year graft survival. Though 10 years is considered long-term survival to transplant physicians, for patients, it is but a brief period of life.