What is Nephrectomy?

A donor nephrectomy is a surgical procedure to remove a healthy kidney from a live donor for transplant into a person whose kidneys no longer function properly.
The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs located on each side of the spine just below the rib cage. Each one is about the size of a fist. Their main function is to filter and remove excess waste, minerals and fluid from the blood by producing urine.
You can donate one of your two kidneys, and the remaining kidney is able to perform the necessary functions, which makes living-donor kidney transplant an alternative to deceased-donor kidney transplant.
People with end-stage kidney (renal) disease need to have waste removed from their bloodstream via a machine (dialysis) or a kidney transplant to stay alive.
The first successful organ transplant in the U.S. was made possible by a living kidney donor in 1954 and used traditional (open) surgery for the kidney donation surgery. Currently, the vast majority of kidney donation surgeries are performed using minimally invasive laparoscopic techniques, and some also use robot-assisted technology.
Live kidney donation via donor nephrectomy is the most common type of living-donor procedure. About 5,000 living kidney donations are reported each year in the U.S.