KBC Zagreb first hospital in SE Europe to buy kidney preservation device

KBC Zagreb

ZAGREB, Oct 10 (Hina) – A new device for kidney preservation was presented on Wednesday at the KBC Zagreb hospital, the first such device in Croatia and all of Southeast Europe.

The EUR 25,000 device, which is expected to significantly improve the quality of the hospital’s renal transplant programme, was bought for the hospital’s organ transplant team.

A demonstration was held by Belgian doctors for their Croatian colleagues to show how the device mechanically preserves a kidney in the period from its removal from the donor to its transplantation.

The device is to help make significant savings for the health system because it reduces postoperative complications and shortens hospital stay after organ transplantation.

KBC Zagreb could buy another such device early next year, which makes its kidney transplant team very enthusiastic about the hospital’s kidney transplant programme.

KBC Zagreb performs 80-100 kidney transplants a year and the number of such operations decreases by the year as donors are increasingly old.

Jasna Brezak, the coordinator of KBC Zagreb’s transplant team, said that Croatia had the best results of the eight Eurotransplant member-countries in terms of the quality and number of kidney, heart and liver transplants.