Nierentransplantation bei Kindern und Jugendlichen

In the case of terminal renal failure in children and adolescents kidney transplantation is the treatment of choice.

This review presents the current recommendations for pediatric kidney transplantation.

Description of the current state of knowledge.

If possible, pre-emptive transplantation should be strived for before the onset of dialysis as this leads to the best possible patient and graft survival. Living donations have a better prognosis than post-mortem donations, which are allocated via Eurotransplant in Germany. After transplantation, individualized lifelong immunosuppressive therapy must be administered. In addition to perioperative surgical risks, there is a long-term risk of viral infections, neoplastic diseases and rejection reactions against the graft. Treatment adherence plays an important role here. The graft loss rate is particularly high in the transition phase to adult medicine.

Newer developments such as biomarkers, tolerance induction or xenotransplantation could significantly change the procedure in the next years.