ROCHESTER, MINN. --Kidney transplant surgeons at Mayo Clinic Rochester are now using laparoscopic techniques (so-called keyhole surgery) for living-donor kidney transplants.
Use of the laparoscope to remove the kidney from the donor and transplant into the recipient requires just a six-inch incision, which results in less pain for both donor and recipient. In most cases, both are back to work within one or two weeks of surgery.
Surgeons expect that the laparoscopic procedure will result in more kidney donations, especially if the donor is a family¹s main income earner. Mayo Clinic Rochester's first such laparoscopic procedure was done in August. Mayo expects to perform about 150 kidney transplants in 1999, about half of them living-donor transplants.
Mike O¹Hara
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e-mail: newsbureau@mayo.edu