Elective and emergency surgery in renal transplant patients.

Additional operations were necessary in 67 (41%) of 162 renal allograft patients. General anesthesia was employed in all but 5 patients with no morbidity or mortality. All patients were immunosuppressed and no additional steroids were used before, during, or after the procedure. The source of the donor kidney made no difference in predicting if a recipient would require post-transplantation surgery or if an emergency or elective operation was required. Oerations were necessary to correct complications either directly related to the transplant procedure (71%), or medical problems of immunosuppression or uremia (21%). Nine patients (6%) required operations unrelated to transplantation. The data indicate that transplant patients frequently need additional procedures which are directly related to the transplant operation, immunosuppression, or metabolic alterations of their past uremic condition. Mortality is related to the degree of toxicity from the immunosuppressive therapy.