Renal Vein Lengthening Using Gonadal Vein Reduces Surgical Difficulty in Living-Donor Kidney Transplantation

Background During living-donor kidney transplantation, to maximally decrease donor injury, the right kidney with lower glomerular filtration rate often is selected as the donor kidney. However, the renal vein of the right kidney is relatively short for transplantation. The gonadal vein is essentially useless and is easily accessed during the donor nephrectomy.