Los Angeles, May 20 – A team of U.S. surgeons has successfully performed the world’s first human bladder transplant, a breakthrough procedure that could offer new treatment options for patients with severely compromised bladder function, officials said on Sunday.
The operation was conducted at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles by a joint team from Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California and UCLA Health. The eight-hour surgery involved transplanting both a bladder and kidney into a patient who had been dependent on dialysis for seven years.
“This surgery is a historic moment in medicine and stands to impact how we manage carefully selected patients with highly symptomatic ‘terminal’ bladders that are no longer functioning,” said Dr. Inderbir Gill, founding executive director of USC Urology, who co-led the procedure alongside Dr. Nima Nassiri, director of the UCLA Vascularized Composite Bladder Allograft Transplant Program.
The recipient, whose bladder had been largely removed during cancer surgery and whose kidneys were later extracted due to renal cancer, became the first patient to receive a combined bladder and kidney transplant. The new kidney began producing urine immediately, eliminating the need for dialysis, according to the surgical team.
“The kidney immediately made a large volume of urine, and the patient’s kidney function improved immediately,” Nassiri said. “There was no need for any dialysis after surgery, and the urine drained properly into the new bladder.”
The surgery marks the culmination of over four years of collaboration, during which Gill and Nassiri developed the surgical technique, designed a clinical trial, and secured regulatory approvals. The team said the operation went according to plan and the patient is recovering well.
Bladder transplantation has long been considered a complex and elusive goal due to challenges in vascular and functional integration. The success of this procedure could pave the way for broader clinical application in patients with end-stage bladder disease.
“Transplantation is a lifesaving and life-enhancing treatment option for many conditions affecting major organs, and now the bladder can be added to the list,” Gill said. The medical team emphasized that bladder transplantation would be reserved for carefully selected patients and that more research is needed before it becomes a standard treatment.
