Kidneys are paired parenchymatous organs, located retroperitoneal. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is defined as structural damage to the kidney or a decrease in its function, in which there is a drop in glomerular filtration, and the duration of such a condition is three months or longer and it impairs health. Kidney transplantation is indicated for people in the terminal stage of CKD, who are expected to survive longer than two years, if no complications occur. Transplantation is defined as a medical procedure by which part of the body, organ, tissue or cells of one organism is transplanted to another organism or to another place of the same organism. The first successful kidney transplant on a dog was performed on March 7, 1902 in Vienna, and the operation was performed by Emerich Ullmann. A prominent name of that time is certainly the French surgeon Alexis Carrel, whose greatest contribution in the field of transplantation is represented by the techniques of anastomosis and suturing. Joseph Murray's team in collaboration with nephrologist John Merrill performed the first successful kidney transplant from identical twins in Boston on 23.12.1954. The development of immunosuppressive therapy enabled kidney transplantation from an unrelated living person or a dead donor. The beginnings of kidney transplantation and treatment of chronic renal failure in Croatia are linked to KBC Rijeka and prof. Vinko Frančišković, and on January 30, 1971, the first kidney transplant was performed in Rijeka.