Transplant nephrectomy and simultaneous second graft retransplantation.

Tranplant nephrectomy and retransplantation has become an established modality in treating patients with rejected kidney allografts. Experience with 29 patients who underwent simultaneous transplant nephrectomy and retransplantation is presented. This procedure did not involve a considerably greater risk than a primary transplant and had an almost equal rate of success. There was no significant correlation between survival or failure of the second graft and the time the patient had been on dialysis prior to the first transplant, the duration of first graft survival, or the source of the first or second kidney. Seventy-five percent of the failures in the second transplant group were due to hyperacute or accelerated rejection, and only 25% were rejected in an acute or chronic fashion. The high frequency of hyperacute and accelerated rejections is presumably a result of presensitization by the first transplant. An inadequate supply of cadaver kidneys prevented performance of the simultaneous procedure in all patients that required it.