Use of expanded criteria in living kidney donors - the crucial factor for improvement of the kidney transplant programme in Republic of Macedonia.

Renal transplantation is surely the best treatment for Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients in both developed and developing countries. Due to the tragic events in former Yugoslavia at the beginning of the nineties, it was not possible to develop a really good clinical practice in the field of transplantation. Facing the lack of Deceased Donor Donation Transplantation and any organ-sharing among the Balkan countries, we introduced a large and very ambitious living donor transplant programme including what were called expanded criteria living donors. In the period of the past 20 years elderly (above 65 years), unrelated (emotionally related), marginal and ABO incompatible living donors were accepted. Due to the skilled surgical team, powerful immunosupression and HLA compatibility testing, the results were promising and the number of complications very low. The authors concluded that use of an expanded criteria living donor is fully acceptable, especially in developing countries, and could ameliorate the severe organ shortage in the region.