First in Korea to Reach 8,000 Kidney Transplantation, Achieving 80.1% 15 Year Graft Survival Rate

Excellent Outcomes Also Achieved in ABO Incompatible and Immunologically High Risk Transplantations

Average Recipient Age Rises from 36 to 52, Driving Growth in Kidney Transplantation Among Older Patients

▲ The Kidney Transplantation Team at Asan Medical Center’s Organ Transplant Center poses for a commemorative photo celebrating Korea’s first milestone of 8,000 kidney transplantations.

Asan Medical Center recently achieved Korea’s first milestone of 8,000 kidney transplantations by successfully transplanting a kidney donated by a patient’s wife to her husband in his 50s who was battling stage 5 chronic kidney disease.

Kidney transplantation is the only definitive treatment for patients with end stage kidney disease whose kidney function has irreversibly deteriorated and who would otherwise require lifelong dialysis. Over the past 35 years, Asan Medical Center has provided 8,000 patients with end stage kidney disease the opportunity for long term survival and an improved quality of life through kidney transplantation.

The Kidney Transplantation Team at Asan Medical Center’s Organ Transplant Center reached the milestone of 8,000 kidney transplantations on May 20, when it successfully transplanted a kidney donated by the wife of a 58 year old man suffering from chronic kidney failure.

Since performing its first deceased donor kidney transplantation in 1990, Asan Medical Center has carried out 6,312 living donor kidney transplantations and 1,688 deceased donor kidney transplantations. Over the past five years, Asan Medical Center has performed approximately one in every five kidney transplantations conducted in Korea and carries out more than twice as many kidney transplantations annually as other major medical centers in the country.

Beyond the sheer number of procedures, the program’s outstanding long term outcomes are equally noteworthy. Asan Medical Center has achieved world class graft survival rates, defined as the proportion of transplanted kidneys that continue to function without the need for dialysis or retransplantation, of 98.5 percent at one year, 95.0 percent at five years, and 88.5 percent at ten years. Notably, the 15 year graft survival rate reaches 80.1 percent, demonstrating the long term safety and durability of its kidney transplantation program.

Asan Medical Center treats a particularly high proportion of high-risk kidney transplantation atients. When a donor and recipient have incompatible blood types, or when crossmatch testing, which evaluates immunological compatibility between the donor and recipient, yields a positive result, the risk of transplantation rejection can increase significantly.

Leveraging its advanced desensitization protocols, which effectively remove antibodies that may attack the donated kidney, Asan Medical Center successfully performed its first ABO incompatible kidney transplantation in 2009. Since then, it has carried out 1,315 such procedures, the highest number in Korea.

ABO incompatible kidney transplantation has now become a routine practice at Asan Medical Center, accounting for approximately 20.3 percent of all living donor kidney transplantations performed in recent years. The five year graft survival rate for ABO incompatible transplantations is 94.1 percent, comparable to the 93.5 percent rate achieved in ABO compatible transplantations. Notably, the patient who received the hospital’s 8,000th kidney transplantations was also an ABO incompatible transplantation recipient.

Asan Medical Center has also demonstrated excellent outcomes in immunologically high-risk patients, including those with positive crossmatch results. The five year graft survival rate in this group was 93.0 percent, comparable to the 93.9 percent rate observed in standard risk recipients, further underscoring the effectiveness of its transplant protocols and long term patient management.

The age profile of kidney transplantation recipients has also changed significantly in response to Korea’s aging population. The median age of transplant recipients increased from 36 years in the 1990s to 52 years between 2020 and 2025. Patients in their 50s now account for the largest proportion of recipients at 31.9 percent, while the share of recipients aged 60 years and older has risen markedly compared with previous decades. These trends reflect Asan Medical Center’s leading role in expanding access to kidney transplantation for older patients.

In addition, Asan Medical Center has been at the forefront of improving patients’ quality of life through the active adoption of robotic kidney transplantation. Asan Medical Center has performed more than 200 robotic kidney transplantations, the highest number in Asia, and has demonstrated clinical outcomes comparable to those achieved with conventional open surgery.

Kidney transplantation is a highly complex procedure that requires advanced microsurgical expertise. Robotic assistance enables surgeons to obtain a surgical view magnified up to tenfold and perform highly precise maneuvers through the robotic system’s articulated instruments. While conventional open kidney transplantation typically requires an incision of approximately 20 centimeters, robotic kidney transplantation can be performed through a single incision of about 6 centimeters, large enough to accommodate the donor kidney, along with three small ports of roughly 1 centimeter around the umbilicus. The smaller incisions reduce the risk of surgical site infection and incisional hernia while promoting faster recovery.

Professor Young-Hoon Kim of the Division of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation at Asan Medical Center, who performed Asan Medical Center’s 8,000th kidney transplantation, said, “The achievement of 8,000 kidney transplantations, the first such milestone in Korea, was made possible by Asan Medical Center’s well established multidisciplinary transplantation system. From preoperative evaluation and surgery to postoperative care and long term follow up, specialists from transplantation surgery, nephrology, infectious diseases, laboratory medicine, the operating room, intensive care unit, inpatient wards, and the Organ Transplant Center work closely together to improve patients’ long term outcomes.”

He added, “The excellent long term survival rates achieved by our transplant recipients demonstrate that kidney transplantation can be performed safely even in immunologically high risk patients and older adults. The Kidney Transplantation Team at Asan Medical Center will continue its efforts to ensure long term survival and a high quality of life for patients with chronic kidney failure.”