Overview
What Is Kidney Transplantation?
Kidney Transplantation
Receiving or donating a kidney is a life‐changing experience. At the Northwestern Medicine Organ Transplant Center, we support you every step of the way—with leading clinical research and innovation, and compassionate care for you and your family.
The Northwestern Medicine Organ Transplant Center is the largest and most successful transplant program in Illinois.
Our team of medical and surgical physicians understands the difference a transplant can make. That’s why we work hard to offer novel approaches to immunosuppression, including human clinical trials in immune tolerance, state‐of‐the‐art genomic and proteomic immune monitoring, and health services and outcomes research.
Why choose Northwestern Medicine for your kidney transplant
The Organ Transplant Center at Northwestern Medicine is the longest continual provider of organ transplantation in Chicago. Our physicians have extensive experience performing more than 6,700 kidney transplants since the program’s inception in 1964, and 332 kidney transplants in 2022 alone. Our goal is to deliver successful transplant options, even in the most challenging cases.
Living Donor Program
Northwestern Medicine has the largest living donor kidney transplant program in Illinois, and one of the largest programs in the country. Our team performed 85 living donor kidney transplants in 2022 and more than 450 over the last five years.
Benefits of receiving a kidney from a living donor include:
- No waiting period, allowing you to avoid dialysis or stop it earlier
- Surgeries can be scheduled at a convenient me for both the donor and recipient
- A kidney from a living donor often works sooner than a kidney from a deceased person, and typically lasts longer
Hispanic Kidney Transplant Program
The transplant team at Northwestern Medicine recognizes the importance of a culturally sensitive approach to patient care. We offer a comprehensive Hispanic Transplant Program in English and in Spanish for Spanish‐speaking patients and family members.
Our program includes a bilingual transplant team made up of surgeons, a social worker, transplant nurse coordinator, a financial coordinator and other support staff.
Led by Juan Carlos Caicedo, MD, we are excited to offer Spanish‐speaking patients the opportunity to attend a transplant patient education clinic at our downtown campus where the entire clinic experience is presented in Spanish.
Kidney Care Close to Home
In addition to the downtown Chicago campus at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, patients can receive care at any one of Northwestern Medicine’s five kidney transplant outreach clinics, including:
- Crest Hill/Joliet: Serving the southern and southwestern suburbs
- Deerfield: Serving the northern suburbs
- Oak Brook: Serving the western suburbs
- Oak Lawn: Serving southwest Chicago
- Huntley: Serving Chicago's far north suburbs
- Chesterton, Indiana: Serving northern Indiana and southwest Michigan
- St. John, Indiana: Serving northwest Indiana and Chicago’s south suburbs
The following types of patients may be seen in the outreach clinics:
- Complex kidney disease patients requiring consultation or second opinion
- Potential kidney transplant candidates
- Patients on the Northwestern Memorial Hospital kidney transplant waiting list
To make an appointment at the Organ Transplant Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, please call 312.695.0828.