Chapter 24: Renal Transplantation in the Older Adult

Many patients once thought too high risk for renal transplantation, including those with advancing age, are now routinely transplanted. Although the number of patients younger than 50 yr of age added to the waiting list for kidney transplantation has remained relatively static during the last decade, in the age group over 65 yr, both the number of patients newly placed on the waiting list and the number of patients transplanted have tripled in the same time frame.1 Accordingly, persons over age 65 made up approximately 16% of both the waiting list and of kidney transplant recipients in 2006 compared with only 8% in 1997. Despite tremendous growth, this only represents a small fraction of kidney transplants in an age distribution that makes up one half of incident dialysis patients.