China reported that its surgeons have performed more than 34,800 kidney transplant operations since the first transplant in 1960, and currently are performing approximately 5,000 kidney transplants a year.

More than 150 Chinese transplant professionals, attending a forum in Qionghai City, were told that the one-year patient survival rate for Chinese kidney transplant recipients has risen from 50 percent in the 1980s to 90 percent today, and that China is catching up with the world's advanced levels in transplantation.

The one-year patient survival rate for kidney transplant patients in the United States is now 95.6 percent, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

The conference was told that kidney transplant surgery is now performed in hospitals in 29 provinces and municipalities across China.