Abstract
To realize the tendency of judgments for legal actions about kidney transplantation in Japan, we analyzed trials that were recovered from published journals and digital databases of adjudications over the past 25 years. Six civil lawsuits were found. The first case is about a patient who refused the reintroduction of hemodialysis and died. The second explores the troubles derived from disbelievers of a family in the harvest of a cadaver kidney. The third is a case that involves death by over-hydration that occurred during the immediate period after operation, and the fourth is a case of postoperative pneumonia. The others are two death cases by posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD). Two judgments were found guilty, and payments were ¥68,850,000 and ¥200,000. Decisions for two cases of PTLD emphasize the significance of accountabilities for the risk of PTLD on preoperative presentations; PTLD has a lower incidence, but it will occasionally produce fatal results. Recent judgments have tendencies to demand good results from kidney-transplantation procedures because they are performed under less urgent situations for the purpose of providing better everyday health to patients.
