A kidney transplant is a surgical procedure performed to replace a diseased kidney with a healthy kidney from another person. The kidney may come from a deceased organ donor or from a living donor. Family members who make a good match may be able to donate one of their kidneys. This type of transplant is called a living transplant. Individuals who donate a kidney can live healthy lives with the remaining kidney. Due to laws and Regulations in Turkey, International patients must have a donated kidney from a living donor.

There are several advantages to living donor transplants when compared to cadaveric transplants. These include:

There is less waiting time involved.

There are higher success rates.

Surgery can be planned, which allows for the best health of the donor and recipient.

The necessities of the basic kidney transplantations are very similar to those used for blood transfusions.

There are four major blood types in humans. These types are simply noted as blood type A, B, AB and O. Another factor, the Rh factor, adds a plus or a minus following the above blood type letter, so that all of us have a blood type such as A+ or B- and so on. This plus or minus factor, however, relates only to a particular cell type in the blood and this factor is not part of the kidney. Thus, the positive or negative feature in blood typing has nothing to do with the matching of a kidney between a donor and a recipient.

A recipient with blood type O can receive a kidney only from a donor with blood type O. A recipient with blood type A may receive a kidney from a recipient with blood type O or A and a recipient with blood type B can receive a kidney from a donor with blood type O or B. Obviously, a recipient with blood type AB can receive a kidney from a person of any blood type.