Renal transplantation in Australia and New Zealand 1963 to 1999

Overview

The main feature of transplantation in Australia and New Zealand over the last few years has been the increasing proportion of living donor transplants on the background of a cadaveric organ donation rate, which is very low by international standards. The increase in living donor transplants has occurred predominantly as a result of an increase in the number of unrelated grafts. The success rate in transplantation in Australia is excellent with a one-year primary cadaveric graft survival rate of around 90% for each year since 1994 to the present. The accumulated one-year graft survival for unrelated living-donor grafts performed between 1990-1999 was 91.6%, which compares favourably with graft survival for all cadaveric grafts over the same period of 86.5%.