The bladder is a vital yet regularly faulty part of the anatomy – and until it goes wrong, we forget quite how important it really is.

However, it is also a very complicated part of the body’s in-built equipment, with millions of people worldwide suffering from some kind of issue with their bladders.

These can range from mild issues to truly debilitating conditions, the latter of which sometimes require the bladder to be removed.

When the organ has been removed though, surgeons have little choice but to augment the patient’s bladder with a piece of repurposed small intestine, which can be highly complicated in both the short and long term.

But in a world-first, surgeons at UCLA have performed a full bladder transplant – and what’s more, the pioneering surgery has been deemed successful.

The patient had previously had to have much of his bladder removed during the process of removing a tumor from his body, whilst his kidneys had both been removed too due to other conditions, meaning that for the last seven years he’d been subject to dialysis.

Due to the severity of his condition, he was selected to be the first recipient of a bladder transplant, with the groundbreaking procedure performed at the Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center in May 2025, after UCLA’s Dr Nima Nassiri and USC’s Dr. Inderbir Gill collaborated for years on pioneering surgical techniques to allow the donor bladder to be removed and transplanted successfully in a patient.

Once in surgery, the patient first received a kidney transplant, before a bladder was transplanted into his body, with astonishingly quick results, as Nassiri explained in a statement:

“The kidney immediately made a large volume of urine, and the patient’s kidney function improved immediately. There was no need for any dialysis after surgery, and the urine drained properly into the new bladder.”

The surgery lasted eight hours, and it is hoped that the transplanted organs will give the patient a new lease of life – though it remains to be seen how his body will respond to the immunosuppressant drugs that prevent the organs from being rejected, and how they will function in the long run.

But for now, the immediate success of the surgery is cause for celebration, providing hope that previous methods of making up for a lost bladder will one day be in the past, as Nassiri continued:

“This first attempt at bladder transplantation has been over four years in the making. A bladder transplant results in a more normal urinary reservoir, and may circumvent some short- and long-term issues associated with using the intestine. For the appropriately selected patient, it is exciting to be able to offer a new potential option.”

For those suffering from debilitating bladder conditions, this new procedure will offer fresh new hope.

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