Living Related Renal Transplantation Using a Saphenous Vein Graft: A Case Report

Abstract

We report a case of living related renal transplantation that used the recipient's saphenous vein as a graft to extend the length of the right donor renal vein.A 41-year-old woman underwent ABO-incompatible living related renal transplantation from her 74-year-old mother in November 2014.A retroperitoneal laparoscopic right donor nephrectomy was performed, because the right kidney showed a cyst on preoperative computed tomography.As the right kidney after donor nephrectomy had a short renal vein and the kidney was large at 280 g, anastomosis with the external iliac vein was difficult. Therefore, we obtained the recipient's 15-cm-long right saphenous vein and created a 1 cm saphenous vein graft. We anastomosed 1 side of the saphenous vein graft to the allograft renal vein in bench surgery and performed end-to-side anastomosis of the other end to the recipient's external iliac vein. The allograft renal artery was used to perform end-to-end anastomosis to the recipient's internal iliac artery. Allograft kidney function was good after transplantation.When the longer axis of the renal graft vein is short, as in the right kidney, a saphenous vein graft may be useful.