“What's the average lifespan of a kidney transplant?”
My friend is only 38 year old, and he needs to have a kidney transplant because of complications from lupus. What's the average lifespan of a kidney transplant?
3 Answers
A long time.
How long a transplant lasts depends on the original disease, the condition of the patient as they receive it, the age, etc. Currently we see that transplants from living donors will have about 85-90% function rate at 5 years, and we have a hard time figuring out what the time is for half of them to not be functioning, since the new drugs are so much better, but have only been available in the last 10-20 years. SO much better than in the 1970's and 1980's!!
It used to be 10 years or so, but now it's a lot longer if no rejection.
H. Jones, MD
H. Jones, MD
