nkfpeers@kidney.org WWW.KIDNEY.ORG 21 What else can I do? Try to learn as much as you can by reading and talking to doctors and nurses, as well as kidney transplant recipients. You may be interested in the following educational resources from the National Kidney Foundation: • Waiting for a Transplant (# 11-70-0656) • From Illness to Wellness: Life After Transplantation (# 11-70-0657) • Taking Control: Money Matters for People with CKD (# 01-10-0250) • Bone Health and Kidney Transplant (# 11-50-2208) • Heart Health and Kidney Transplant (# 11-50-2108) • Life After Transplant: Your Guide to Staying Healthy After Kidney Transplantation (# 11-10-3012) • Sexuality and Chronic Kidney Disease ( # 11-10-0504) • Nutrition and Transplantation ( # 11-10-0404) 22 NATIONAL KIDNEY FOUNDATION Brochures can be mailed to you free-of-charge. Call the NKF’s tol Living Donor Kidney Transplantation - Protocols Why do we need protocols? Every transplant centre needs to make decisions on their routine practice, to decide on a set of protocols for the transplant surgeons and physicians at the centre. The reason for this is that all patients should be given the best possible care. These protocols should be based on current transplantation research and they should be updated at regular intervals. The objective is to reach the highest international standard of outcome after kidney transplantation. For whom is this book written? This book is a collection of protocols that are based on current transplantation science and experience. They are currently used at the transplant centres of the authors. We have written this book for anyone who is working as a doctor or nurse at a kidney transplant centre, and recommend that you use it for critical discussions and decisions on the protocols used at your centre. You will need to make regular updates of the protocols in the future if you are to keep your practice current. How to make your own protocols With this book you should fi nd a CD. Open the CD on your computer and you will fi nd the text of this book in two versions: a pdf fi le (Adobe) and a doc fi le (Microsoft Offi ce Word). If you want to make a print out of the same text as in the book, use the pdf fi le. If you want to make your own protocols, similar to what we have suggested but with an update or with local application, use the doc fi le and make your revisions in Word. We hope that you will use this book with the CD and take advantage of the possibilities for local application, which combined with regular updates will be a useful tool for your patients and for your clinical practice. January 2010 Henrik Ekberg Zhongquan Qi Professor of Transplant Surgery Lund University, University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden henrik.ekberg@med.lu.se Professor of Surgery and Vice-Dean Medical Faculty, Xiamen University, Xiamen, P.R. China zqqi@xmu.edu.cn Practical Protocols for Living Donor Kidney Transplantation 6 Authors Dr Henrik Ekberg is Senior Transplant Surgeon at the University Hospital in Malmö, and Professor of Transplant Surgery at Lund University, Sweden. His main research interest concerns immunosuppression in renal transplantation. He has had an active role in a large number of multicentre clinical trials; for example the CAESAR and the Symphony studies. He was a contributor to the European Best Practice Guidelines in Renal Transplantation, published in 2000 (part 1) and 2002 (part 2). He has also participated in the working groups for the KDIGO Guidelines (2009). Dr Ekberg is Associate Editor of the American Journal of Transplantation and member of the editorial board of Transplantation, Clinical Transplantation and Transplant International. He has been Vice-President of the European Society of Organ Transplantation and was also Councillor for The Transplantation Society for a few years. Dr Zhongquan Qi is Professor of Surgery and Vice-Dean at the Medical Faculty of Xiamen University in Xiamen, P.R. China, Director of the Transplant Institute at the same faculty and Senior Consultant at the Zhong Shan Hospital in Xiamen. He completed his MD at Harbin Medical University in 1984 and was appointed specialist in general surgery and lecturer at this institution in 1991. Two years later he moved to Sweden and became a PhD student of Dr Henrik Ekberg, focusing on research in experimental transplantation. In 1995 he passed his PhD (Doctor of Medical Sciences) at Lund University in Sweden. He continued to contribute to transplantation clinical and research work in Sweden for a few years and then returned to China to take up his current positions in 2006. He has also been active as professor and supervisor in surgical research at Harbin Medical University in China since 2001. D H ikEkb i S i T l D Zh Qi i P f f S 7 A message from The Transplantation Society Professor Jeremy Chapman is Director of Renal and Transplant Medicine, Westmead Hospital, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia, and President, The Transplantation Society 2008- 2010. This book provides the practical elements needed for a modern transplantation programme. It is absolutely essential in today’s clinical transplant programmes that all the professional staff work as a unit – surgeons, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, coordinators, dieticians and physiotherapists alike. Without protocols covering the most important aspects of transplant care there is