- Valencia’s La Fe hospital performs the first kidney extraction from a living donor using robotic surgery for kidney transplant
The kidney transplant team at Hospital La Fe has performed, for the first time in the Valencian Community, a kidney extraction, known as a nephrectomy, from a living donor using robotic technology. The case was a success, and the patient was discharged without complications after 48 hours.
Technological development is allowing for increasingly safer and less impactful interventions for kidney donors, using minimally invasive techniques. First with laparoscopy and, currently, with robotic surgery, bleeding, postoperative pain and days of hospitalization after kidney extraction have been reduced.
The intervention has been possible thanks to the collaboration of the Urology and Nephrology services, as well as the Anaesthesiology and Transplant Coordination services of Hospital La Fe.
This first nephrectomy performed with the Da Vinci robot has made it possible to refine both precision, safety and surgical possibilities thanks to three-dimensional vision, ergonomic controls and the great manoeuvrability that the robot offers within the body, which guarantees millimeter precision, which increases surgical quality and reduces blood loss.
Kidney transplantation from a living donor, as programmed surgery, is the best scenario to introduce robotic surgery in transplantation. Living donor nephrectomy is only the first step towards implanting the kidney extracted with robotic technology.
Kidney transplant is the best treatment for chronic kidney failure in terms of survival, quality of life, complications and cost-effectiveness compared to dialysis.
Since its beginning, La Fe’s living donor transplant program has exceeded 3,000 transplants in adult recipients and 400 in paediatric recipients. All of this within the framework of the hospital with the greatest transplant activity in Spain and among the top ten in terms of kidney transplantation. Every year at La Fe Hospital there are more than one hundred kidney transplants from deceased donors.
