If a person is in end stage renal disease and needs a kidney, would age exclude her from transplant?

Transplant: It depends on several factors. Age is definitely an issue, but they often use extended criteria donor kidneys for older patients (the kidney may be older). I have seen transplant patients in their 80s get kidneys. The biggest issue is that the patient has to be stable enough (heart, lungs, body) to tolerate a transplant.

No: Some centers do have upper limits on the age of people they transplant. Other centers base the decision off of the persons overall health. Our center had an 80 yo person who was transplanted and lived off of dialysis for 9 years.