On May 18, 2025, a surgical team from the University of California, Los Angeles Health (UCLA Health) announced the have performed the first-in-human bladder transplant. The surgery was successfully completed at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on May 4, 2025.

The team was led by Dr. Nima Nassiri, a urologic transplant surgeon and director of the UCLA Vascularized Composite Bladder Allograft Transplant Program, with assistance from Dr. Inderbir Gill, founding executive director of USC Urology. “This first attempt at bladder transplantation has been over four years in the making,” Nassiri said. “For the appropriately selected patient, it is exciting to be able to offer a new potential option.” 

The patient had lost most of his bladder during a tumor removal, leaving the remainder too small and compromised to work. Both of his kidneys were also subsequently removed due to renal cancer in the setting of pre-existing end-stage kidney disease. As a result, he was on dialysis for seven years. The biggest risks of organ transplantation are the body’s potential rejection of the organ and side-effects caused by the mandatory immune suppressing drugs given to prevent organ rejection.

The recovery of the kidney and bladder from the donor was performed at OneLegacy.  All parts of the procedure, including surgery and post-surgical monitoring during the transplantation, were aligned with the highest current clinical and research standards. 

During the complex procedure, the surgeons transplanted the donated kidney, following that with the bladder. The new kidney was then connected to the new bladder using the technique that Nassiri and Gill pioneered. The entire procedure lasted approximately eight hours.

Bladder transplants have not been done previously, in part because of the complicated vascular structure of the pelvic area and the technical complexity of the procedure. As part of the research and development stage, Nassiri and Gill successfully completed numerous practice transplantation surgeries at Keck Medical Center of USC.

The two surgeons also undertook several non-robotic trial runs of bladder recovery at OneLegacy, allowing them to perfect the technique while working closely with multi-disciplinary surgical teams. The procedure was performed as part of a UCLA clinical trial. Nassiri hopes to perform more bladder transplants in the near future.