Transplanting Adult Kidneys into Infants and Children

Research completed at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (LPCH) demonstrates that a kidney transplanted from an adult donor into an infant or small child has the greatest chance of success of any organ transplant in any age group. The best results come with kidneys from living donors, although deceased-donor kidneys succeed relatively well.

The leading difficulty with transplanting an adult-sized kidney into an infant or small child is supplying it with adequate blood flow. The child’s smaller heart, blood volume and vessels are insufficient to satisfy the blood flow demand of an adult-sized kidney on their own. Blood pooling in the transplanted kidney clots, and the kidney stops functioning.

Our kidney transplant program surgeons solve this problem by placing the child on intravenous and gastric-tube fluids to increase blood volume for at least 12 months after the transplant. To date, this method has achieved one-year survival of every adult-size kidney transplanted into infants and small children.