Christine Russell's 1,000 kidney transplants saluted in 2025 – 60 years after Australia's first success in Adelaide
Royal Adelaide Hospotal kidney transplant surgeon Dr Christine Russell (at left) being farewelled at Royal Darwin Hospital where 245 of her more than 1,000 transplants included for Northern Territorians. Russell retired in February 2025 – 60 years since Australia's first successful kidney transplant at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in South Australia. At right: Donor Domenic Centofanti (left) with son-in-law Pasquale (Peter) Tirimacco and daughter Stella soon after Australia’s first successful kidney transplant in 1965. In front are Peter and Stella’s children Gina, Enrico and Nora.
Images courtesy Royal Darwin Hospital and We Are SA
February 2025 marked the 60th anniversary of Australia’s first kidney transplant at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide and the retirement of a South Australian surgeon, Dr Christine Russell, who had performed more than 1,000 transplants since then.
Clinicians and researchers in Adelaide were kidney transplant pioneers. The first successful renal transplant in Australia was performed in February 1965 at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woodville South, Adelaide, by professor Peter Knight (recipient surgeon) with donor surgeon Dr William (Bill) Proudman. Professor Knight had been recruited by the Adelaide University from the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston where he had worked with future Nobel Laureate Dr Joe Murray who performed the world’s first successful kidney transplant.
Unlike other early kidney transplants, the first Australian kidney transplant at the The Queen Elizabeth Hospital was a living unrelated transplant: 56-year-old Domenic Centofanti giving to his son in law Peter Tirimacco, 33, suffering an immune disease that led to his two kidneys being removed. Led by surgeon Knight and renal unit director, professor Jim Lawrence, the marathon double operation took most of the day and, helped by immunosuppression drugs to stop his body from rejecting the organ, the surgery was a success. It was the first to last longer than one year.
Tirimacco’s transplant lasted 11 years allowed him to return to full-time work and see his family grow up, before the kidney failed and he had to restart dialysis, sharing another decade with his family.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital continued to lead in transplantation immunosuppression trials through the work of associate professor Tim Mathew, professor Graeme Russ and associate rofessor Mohan Rao, who introduced laparoscopic donor nephrectomy surgery to Australia in 1996. Since 1965, teams at TQEH and the Royal Adelaide Hospital had performed more than 3,400 kidney transplants, including 100 successful surgeries in 2024.
An afternoon tea with Peter Tirimacco's family and past and present health staff in February 2025 marked the milestone of the first transplant 60 years before. \ The event also celebrates the profound impact of Royal Adelaide Hospital transplant surgeon Dr Christine Russell who was retiring that month after performing more than 1,000 kidney transplants. Russell’s worked extended to the Northern Territory where, for 22 years, at Royal Darwin Hospital's Top End renal service she assessed almost every Territorian who has received a kidney transplant during that time. Her 245 kidney transplant recipients in the Territory gained more than 870 years of life.
