Why Choose Koç Transplant Center?
Everybody hope that their loved ones live healthy and happy lives free of serious medical problems. However, a significant number of people require specialized medical care, particularly for the treatment of organ failure every year. This fact is even more devastating in children. All parents hope that their children have healthy and happy childhoods. Unfortunately, a significant number of children are diagnosed with chronic organ failure every year.
Koç University Hospital offers organ transplantation in a high quality level based on an advanced global standard of care for both adult and pediatric patients. Organ Transplant Center has witnessed a tremendous admission of patients seeking treatment for kidney, pancreas and liver failure in its first year of opening.
Organ Transplant Center delivers excellent care with a global team of caregivers who change the lives of many patients with end-stage organ disease throughout the world. Thanks to Prof. Dr. Munci Kalayoglu, listed as one of the 20 most innovative pediatric surgeons alive today, who changed the field of pediatric medicine forever, saving the lives of many children around the world by making liver transplantation a routine and acceptable form of treatment for liver failure both in adults and pediatric patients. He founded the Liver Transplant Program at the University of Wisconsin in the US and ran the program roughly for 25 years. A leading pediatric and general surgeon, Dr. Kalayoglu has performed more than 1,500 liver transplants, including Wisconsin's first liver transplant, the state's first reduced-size liver transplant, the first cluster transplant, the first adult-to-adult living donor liver transplant, the first pediatric liver transplant and the transplant on the state's smallest liver transplant recipient. He also performed Wisconsin's only separation of conjoined twins. He also pioneered the use of the Belzer UW organ preservation solution in clinical liver transplantations.
After returning to Turkey in 2006, Dr. Kalayoglu recruited two young US-trained transplant surgeons for his new Organ Transplant Program. 12 years after working together, Dr. Kalayoglu mentored these two surgeons for the foundation of Koç University Hospital Organ Transplant Center.
Burak Kocak, MD, a Professor of Urology and director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program is trained at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, US and he is certified by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons for Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation.
Turan Kanmaz, MD is a Professor of Pediatric Surgery and director of the Liver Transplant Program. He worked in the University of Wisconsin Liver Transplant Program for two years with Dr. Kalayoglu.
Emre Arpali, MD has joined the program as co-director of the Kidney Transplant Program. He is trained at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US and he is certified by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and European Board of Surgery for Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation.
Basak Akyollu, MD has also joined the program as co-director of the Pancreas Transplant Program.
Koç University Hospital Organ Transplant Center offers kidney, pancreas and liver transplant operations by an internationally experienced team. Koç University Hospital Pediatric Organ Transplantation Program offers kidney and liver transplant operations.
Choosing the right transplant center is very important. Organ transplantation does not solely consists of the operation itself. It includes pre-transplant and post-transplant processes as well. It requires a multidisciplinary care, therefore a high quality of laboratory, operating rooms, pre and post operative care and intensive care unit (ICU) and imaging services is necessary during the transplantation process. Koç University Hospital is fully equipped with the latest technology and offers advanced surgical applications. The organ transplant surgeries at Koç University Hospital performed by our highly experienced organ transplant team in a fully equipped hospital based on the cutting-edge technology, results in high success rates. Organ Transplant Center also introduced innovative techniques to shorten recovery times for both recipients and living donors.
Koç University Hospital Organ Transplant Center offers the following procedures:
- Kidney and liver transplantation from both live and deceased donors
- Pancreas transplantation from deceased donors
- Combined kidney and liver transplantation (simultaneously or sequentially)
- Pediatric kidney transplantation
- Pediatric liver transplantation
- Pediatric combined kidney and liver transplantation (simultaneously or sequentially)
- Donor kidney removal through laparoscopic technique or robot-assisted technique
- Donor liver removal through laparoscopic technique
- Paired exchange kidney transplants
- Paired exchange liver transplants
- Domino liver transplants
Koç University Hospital Organ Transplant Center offers robot assisted kidney transplantation.
The kidney transplant surgeons at Koç University Hospital adopted the robotic kidney transplantation procedure, a rarely performed procedure around the world. The donor kidney is placed into the patient’s body through a small 5-cm abdominal incision made around the belly button and the surgeons perform the rest of the entire procedure with the da Vinci Xi robotic system. In robotic surgery, our surgeons use a computer-controlled robotic arm to perform the transplant. The surgeons direct the movements of the arm and use tiny instruments through small incisions to transplant the donor kidney. Our team combined their collective expertise in laparoscopic, robotic and kidney transplant surgery accumulated over 2000 cases and 2 decades to successfully complete the operations.
Besides being cosmetically superior to open surgical technique, robotic kidney transplantation provides less pain following surgery and allows patients to regain their quality of life more rapidly.
Besides of all aformentioned advantages of the robotic kidney transplantation procedure, Koç University Hospital Organ Transplant Center brings cutting edge practice to the care of end-stage kidney disease patients for a safe, minimally invasive procedure.
Koç University Hospital Organ Transplant Center implants all forms of minimally invasive surgery to the care of live donors.
The liver transplant surgeons at Koç University Hospital adopted Turkey’s first purely laparoscopic living donor hepatectomy procedure for liver transplant. The first example of its kind in Turkey is a landmark operation for Koç University Hospital, a rarely performed procedure around the world. Surgeons at Koç Organ Transplant Center use a camera and tiny instruments through small incisions in the body of the donor to take a piece of the donor’s liver in order to transplant to its recipient.
Besides being cosmetically superior to open surgical technique, laparoscopic donor hepatectomy provides less pain following surgery, less hospital stay and allows patients to regain their quality of life more rapidly.
The kidney transplant surgeons at Koç University Hospital also uses the da Vinci Xi robotic system to procure kidneys from their donors. They brought this innovative surgery into their daily clinical practice on top of their experience accumulated with more than 2000 laparoscopic donor nephrectomies, one of the biggest series in Europe and probably in the world.