Multivariate analysis of donor risk factors for graft survival in kidney transplantation

The results of the transplantation of marginal donor kidneys remain controversial. This study aimed to investigate the impact of donor risk factors as predictors of kidney-graft outcome.

Allograft failure risk factors were studied in 7,209 cadaveric kidney-transplant recipients reporting to the Etablissement français des Greffes (EfG) from 1996 to 2000, of which 544 (7.6%) were from donors aged over 60. Both univariate and multivariate analysis were used to assess the effect of donor risk factors and were stratified according to recipient age.

Overall graft survival was 91.1% (95% confidence interval [CI] 90.5-91.8) at 1 year, 88.6% (95% CI 87.8-89.4) at 2 years, and 85.6% (95% CI 84.6-86.6) at 3 years posttransplant. Univariate analysis of risk factors showed a significant reduction of graft survival in recipients transplanted with kidneys coming from donors older than 60 years, donors with a history of hypertension, a cerebrovascular cause of death, and a preharvesting serum creatinine greater than 150 micromol/L. Multivariate analysis revealed significantly higher failure rate associated with cerebrovascular cause of death (RR=1.2, P=0.02), history of hypertension (RR=1.2, P=0.04), and elevated serum creatinine (RR=1.3, P=0.03), whereas donor age greater than 60 years was not found as an independent risk factor.

Our results suggest that cerebrovascular cause of death, history of hypertension, and elevated creatinine are significant independent donor risk factors for graft survival, whereas donor age is a statistically significant, but dependent, risk factor. This result is important for the design of allocation and transplantation strategies for kidneys procured in elderly donors.