DCN Center News

Charlotte Markle, 81, is among the world’s longest-surviving kidney transplant recipients. Her transplant at Mayo Clinic was over 57 years ago on March 2, 1966.

Mayo Clinic’s first robotic-assisted kidney transplant was successfully performed on Oct. 4 on a woman in her 60s who received a kidney from her daughter.

A new patient outreach program at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona is working to connect American Indians and Alaska Natives with the lifesaving transplants they need. In the Navajo Reservation in Northern Arizona, one man says the program helped save his life.

Often, patients whose body mass index, or BMI, is too high aren’t able to get a kidney transplant because of the higher risks of complications before and during surgery. But an innovative program at Mayo Clinic is giving patients hope by helping to break that barrier to transplant through a weight loss program.

Over 100,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for an organ transplant. If you’ve never considered organ donation or delayed becoming a donor because of possibly inaccurate information, here are answers to some common organ donation myths and concerns.

Six of the 11 Mayo Clinic hospitals across the organization, including Mayo Clinic Rochester, Arizona, and Florida, received earned five stars for Overall Hospital Quality from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)—the best score possible. The national average is 3 of 5 stars.

The risk of major complications for people who donate a kidney via laparoscopic surgery is minimal. That is the conclusion of a 20-year Mayo Clinic study of more than 3,000 living kidney donors. Only 2.5% of patients in the study experienced major complications, and all recovered completely.

If you’re a kidney transplant patient, your chances of living a longer life are improving, according to a recent review published in The New England Journal of Medicine.