Costs of Kidney Transplantation

Kidney transplantation has taken nearly a century to reach its current state of clinical excellence, yet the economic challenges facing transplant centers have never been greater. The many innovations in transplant science have not, to this point, been matched with parallel developments in the financing of care for patients with end stage renal disease, leading to significant economic challenges for transplant providers. Despite the significant clinical and economic advantages of kidney transplant over dialysis demonstrated since the 1960s, the growing use of marginal organs; transplant into older, sicker, and highly sensitized recipients; and utilization of ABOi and tolerance-inducing protocols results in increased expenditures for kidney transplantation and posttransplant care. This chapter will succinctly illustrate the economic challenges that transplantation is facing in the Western world.