[The history of kidney transplantation in Germany]

Abstract

In 1910 Ernst Unger started kidney transplantation in Germany, when he tried to cure an uremic patient in Berlin by transplanting a monkey kidney. But it was not until 1963 that the urologists Brosig and Nagel - again in Berlin - began relevant clinical renal transplantation. In the late sixties the teams in Munich and Heidelberg took over the main initiative. In the seventies the method was widely accepted as therapy in chronic renal failure. But the quantitative development in both parts of Germany was very slow. In 1977 less than 100 transplantations were carried out in East Germany and less than 300 in the West. But then the numbers reached 2 015 in 1990 in the BRD and 343 in the DDR, resp. Unfortunately after the reunification there was no further increase, the numbers rather fluctuated between 2 000 and 2 300. While the former difference between East and West may well be explained by different forms of organisation, the situation after the reunification might be due to the emotional discussions on legislation and necessary structural alterations, the roots of which are disclosed.