Evidence-based complementary benefit of the vascular surgeon among the team of renal transplantation; a single centre experience.

INTRODUCTION: In a kidney transplant tertiary referral center; we compared three operating team configurations of different surgical specialties to highlight the effect of the operating surgeon's specialty on various operative details and procedural outcome.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 50 cases of living donor transplantations were divided into three main groups according to the operating surgeons' specialty, the first group (A) includes 12 patients exclusively operated on by urologists with advanced training in transplantation, the second group (B) includes 35 patients operated by combined surgical specialties; a urologist and a vascular surgeon both with advanced transplantation training, and a third group (C) includes 3 cases where the transplant operation commenced with operating urologists as in group (A) but required intra-operative urgent notification of a vascular surgeon to manage unexpected intraoperative technical difficulties or major complications. Cases were studied according to operative details, anastomosis techniques, ischemia times, total procedure time, recovery of urinary output, ICU (intensive care unit) stay, postoperative surgical complications and serum creatinine level for up to three years of follow-up.

RESULTS: Study of operative details revealed that total duration of graft ischemia was significantly shorter in group (B) and significantly longer in group (C) (P-value 0.001), Total procedural duration also varied significantly between the three groups, group (B) being the shortest while group (C) was the longest (P-value less than 0.001). Technically; group (A) used only end to end arterial anastomosis as a standard technique, while group (B) used both end-to-end and end-to-side anastomoses as required per each case. End to side anastomosis in group (B) yielded better immediate graft response in the form of change in colour , texture, earlier and more profuse postoperative urine volumes (P-value 0.025). Furthermore, anastomosis to common and external iliac arteries (group B) yielded earlier and higher urine volumes than the internal iliac artery (P-values 0.024 and 0.031 respectively). Group (B) recorded significantly less postoperative peri-graft hematomas and lymphoceles compared to the other two groups. Equal rates of urine leaks, ICU stay, creatinine levels, patient and grafts survival rates among groups (A) and (B), while post-operative recovery and ICU stay duration were more lengthy in the complicated group (C).

CONCLUSION: A vascular surgeon operating in a transplantation team would deal comfortably and efficiently with various vascular related challenges and complications, thus avoiding unnecessary time waste, complications and costs.