Kidney Transplant Centre

The Kidney Transplant Centre at SilverOak Health is a comprehensive renal transplantation programme offering living donor and deceased donor kidney transplantation, supported by a multidisciplinary team of transplant nephrologists, transplant surgeons, transplant coordinators, immunologists, and specialist nurses dedicated to delivering the best possible outcomes for patients with end-stage kidney disease.

Kidney transplantation provides superior survival, quality of life, and freedom from dialysis compared to any form of renal replacement therapy. Pre-emptive transplantation — performed before dialysis initiation — offers the best outcomes and is actively pursued for suitable living donor pairs. Our pre-transplant evaluation programme comprehensively assesses recipient fitness, immunological compatibility through HLA typing and crossmatch testing, cardiovascular readiness, and freedom from active infection or malignancy that would contraindicate immunosuppression.

Living donor evaluation prioritises donor safety above all other considerations. Laparoscopic donor nephrectomy — standard in our programme — minimises the surgical burden on donors, enabling same-day or next-day mobilisation and discharge within two to three days. ABO-incompatible living donor transplantation using desensitisation protocols expands the living donor pool for recipients with blood group barriers. Paired kidney exchange programmes are available to enable living donor transplants when direct immunological compatibility precludes direct donation.

Deceased donor transplantation — including standard criteria, expanded criteria, and donation after circulatory death kidneys — is performed through our 24/7 on-call transplant programme. Machine perfusion of donor kidneys — both hypothermic and normothermic — is used for marginal donor organs to assess viability and reduce delayed graft function rates. Our allocation protocols prioritise sensitised recipients, paediatric candidates, and long-waiting patients in accordance with national guidelines.

Post-transplant immunosuppression with tacrolimus, mycophenolate, and prednisolone is individualised based on immunological risk, donor-specific antibody status, and graft function. Surveillance biopsy at three and twelve months detects subclinical rejection and enables early treatment before overt dysfunction occurs. Monitoring for opportunistic infections, BK virus nephropathy, malignancy, and cardiovascular disease is structured and protocol-driven. Our one-year graft survival rates consistently exceed 95% for living donor and 90% for deceased donor transplants.