1 Recommendations

1 Recommendations

1.1 Current evidence on the safety and efficacy of robot-assisted kidney transplant is limited in quantity and quality. For patients with obesity who would not otherwise be able to have a kidney transplant without an unacceptable risk of morbidity, this procedure should only be used with special arrangements for clinical governance, consent, and audit or research. In patients for whom open kidney transplant surgery is suitable, this procedure should only be used in the context of research. Find out what special arrangements and only in research mean on the NICE interventional procedures guidance page.

1.2 Clinicians wishing to do robot-assisted kidney transplant in people with obesity who would not otherwise be able to have a kidney transplant without an unacceptable risk of morbidity should:

1.3 Further research should include studies comparing robot-assisted kidney transplant with open surgery. This should collect data on patient selection, warm ischaemia times, the need for conversion to open surgery, graft function, and long-term graft and patient survival.

1.4 The procedure should only be done by teams of surgeons with experience in both transplant surgery and robotic surgery.

  • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)