Renal services and transplantation

Guy’s and St Thomas’ renal service is internationally recognised as a centre of excellence for renal transplantation and the treatment of kidney disease.

Our renal service has led the world in kidney care since it opened in the 1970s. Today, our centre of excellence offers a diverse range of renal services.

We operate one of the largest renal transplant programmes in the UK and Europe and one of the largest paediatric transplant units in the world. We specialise in adult and paediatric complex cases and are renowned for providing transplants for many patients who wouldn’t usually be able to have one.

Our national and international reputation for kidney transplantation is outstanding, as is our record of innovation.

• The first centre in the UK to have a living donor transplant programme.
• Home to the largest and most active living kidney donation programme in the UK.
• The largest laparoscopic (keyhole) donor programme in the UK.
• The first centre in the UK to perform robotic transplantation.
• The largest centre for antibody incompatible transplantation in the UK.

Dedicated clinical research has led to cutting-edge treatments and technologies. We are allied with the Medical Research Council Centre for Transplantation, which allows us to undertake research projects and remain at the forefront of clinical research.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ is famous for pioneering the use of robotic technology in the UK and our renal transplantation department continues to actively contribute to this reputation through performing revolutionary procedures.

Achievements

• Our transplant surgeons were first in the world to use 3D printing to support the successful transplantation of an adult donor kidney into a child.
• Our renal team was the first in the UK to use new robotic technology to undertake full kidney transplants using the advanced da Vinci robot to perform keyhole surgery to implant donor kidneys in patients.

Specialist transplantation services

The renal service is one of the few in the UK to offer a blood group incompatibility programme. It’s the largest programme in the UK, having operated on more than 100 blood group incompatible living donor recipients and has a success rate of over 95%. It now includes paediatric transplantation.

We also run the largest human leukocyte antigens (HLA) incompatibility programme in the UK. The success of the programme and desensitization process has attracted referrals from immunologically complex patients all over the world.

The team work closely with adult and paediatric urology services to help patients before and after kidney transplantation and those patients moving into adult life.

If you would like to find out more simply, download a copy of our brochure.