Shanghai's First! Shanghai General Hospital Successfully Performs Robot-Assisted Kidney Transplant

Background

Shanghai General Hospital, also known as Shanghai First People's Hospital and affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, hosts the Shanghai Organ Transplant Clinical Medical Center. The hospital's Department of Urology and Kidney Transplantation has performed more than 2,200 kidney transplants with a long history in the field, including living donor procedures. On October 28, 2025, the department completed Shanghai's first da Vinci robot-assisted kidney transplant surgery.

What was achieved

The living-donor kidney transplant was performed between a 65-year-old female donor (the patient's mother) and her 40-year-old son, who weighed 94.3 kg and had end-stage renal disease due to hypertensive nephropathy with aldosteronism. The recipient had a preoperative serum creatinine of approximately 1,300-1,485 μmol/L and had been receiving hemodialysis for more than two weeks.

The entire procedure took about two hours with intraoperative blood loss of less than 50 ml. The donor kidney was retrieved via laparoscopic left donor nephrectomy. Postoperatively, the recipient produced 14,000 ml of urine within the first 12 hours. By the third postoperative day, serum creatinine had fallen to 110 μmol/L. Both donor and recipient recovered rapidly, and the recipient was discharged after two weeks.

How it works

In a robot-assisted kidney transplant, surgeons use the da Vinci Surgical System, which consists of a surgeon console, a patient-side cart with robotic arms, and a high-definition 3D vision system. The surgeon sits at the console and manipulates master controls; the system translates these hand movements into precise actions by the robotic instruments inside the patient. The instruments have wrist-like joints offering enhanced dexterity and range of motion compared to standard laparoscopic tools, while the 3D camera provides up to tenfold magnified stereoscopic views of the surgical field and filters out natural hand tremor.

For the recipient operation, small incisions are made to allow placement of the robotic arms and camera. The donor kidney is positioned in the iliac fossa in the lower abdomen. The robotic system enables precise dissection and suturing to connect the renal artery and vein of the graft to the recipient's external iliac vessels, followed by implantation of the ureter into the bladder. This approach contrasts with traditional open kidney transplantation, which requires a larger incision. In this case, the donor nephrectomy was performed laparoscopically. The technique is intended to minimize tissue trauma, reduce blood loss, and support faster recovery while maintaining the precision needed for vascular anastomoses.

What it means for international patients

Shanghai General Hospital maintains an International Medical Healthcare Center (IMCC), one of the first designated by the Shanghai government for foreign patients. It offers 24-hour outpatient, emergency, and inpatient services, multilingual support including English, Japanese, and Russian, VIP rooms comparable to hotel standards, and direct billing arrangements with multiple international insurance providers.

For procedures such as kidney transplantation, international patients must verify eligibility, regulatory requirements regarding living donors and organ transplantation for non-residents, medical suitability, and availability directly with the hospital's international department. Criteria can be complex and are subject to Chinese regulations on transplantation.

About the hospital

Shanghai General Hospital was founded in 1864 as one of the earliest Western medicine hospitals in China. It is a Class A tertiary comprehensive hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, with north campus in Hongkou District (Haining Road) and south campus in Songjiang District. It occupies one of the largest land areas among Shanghai hospitals.

The hospital is home to the Shanghai Organ Transplant Clinical Medical Center and a national clinical key specialty construction project in urology. It also operates Shanghai clinical medical centers and research institutes in areas including ophthalmology. The International Medical Healthcare Center provides dedicated services for overseas patients.