The surgical progress of kidney transplantation programme in Rijeka

Kidney transplantation programme in Rijeka started with experimental surgery. The experience from this field combined with education in foreign centers of excellence was a prerequisite for starting this programme on the patients. The first kidney transplantation in our center was performed on January 30th 1971. This was also the first kidney transplantation in Croatia and former Yugoslavia. In the following years the kidney transplantation became a routine surgical procedure but always using multidisciplinary approach. During years and decades of dedicated surgical work many surgical improvements were achieved and many of them were performed in our center for the first time in Croatia and surrounding countries. Some of them are: orthotopic kidney transplantation, en-bloc kidney transplantation, transplantation using urinary diversion and transplantation of horseshoe kidney. In this review article we will present surgical achievements of our transplant team.