Review: Semaglutide Helped Some People on Dialysis Lose Enough Weight to Join Kidney Transplant Waitlists
Nephrologists at Zhejiang Chinese Medical University reported in BMC Nephrology on October 13, 2026 a systematic review of semaglutide in adults on dialysis, whose obesity can block kidney transplant listing. Across 7 main studies with 147 participants, exploratory pooling found an average weight loss of about 7.3 kg, and in two transplant-candidate groups 14 of 29 and 13 of 23 previously ineligible patients were activated or listed, with 7 and 8 later receiving transplants. The studies were small, mostly uncontrolled, and highly varied, so the authors treated the pooled numbers as exploratory.