Kidney Pump Offers New Hope for Transplant Patients

The Avera Transplant Institute uses a kidney perfusion pump, a complex device that measures how easily fluids move through a kidney.

The kidney pump is used to:

• Help predict if a kidney is functioning appropriately and can be used without risk of delayed graft function or non-function
• Therapeutically perfuses deceased donor kidneys while awaiting recipient arrival and crossmatch completion

The goal of the pump is to save kidneys that may have otherwise been discarded, in order to offer life-saving transplantation to those waiting for an organ. Since acquiring the kidney pump in early 2004, several patients have received kidneys which would have otherwise been discarded.