Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding prior to renal transplantation.

End-stage renal failure is most commonly caused by the obesity-related diseases, diabetes mellitus and essential hypertension, and is best treated with renal transplantation. Obesity may contribute to poor patient and graft survival, and is an exclusion criterion in some renal transplant programs. Diet and exercise programs have not proven to be effective for weight loss before transplantation, and bariatric surgery in any form has not been used in this setting before. We report three morbidly obese patients who underwent laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding to meet the criteria for renal transplantation and subsequently were successfully transplanted.