Kidney transplantation from donors aged more than 65 years

There are no agreed criteria to predict the outcome of elderly donor kidneys or to decide between single (SKG) or dual (DKG) kidney graft transplantation.

Between January 1999 and January 2003, 46 SKG and 14 DKG were performed from elderly donors (mean donor age 71.6 years; range: 66 to 87). Kidney biopsies were scored according to Karpinski. A calculated admission creatinine clearance <50 mL/min and/or a biopsy score of 5 or 6 were used to select kidneys for DKG. Grafts with better function or lower biopsy scores were employed for SKG.

Mean cold ischemia time (CIT) was 16.8 hours (range 8.1 to 28.6) in SKG, and 16.3 hours (range 4.6 to 24.3) for the first kidney and 17.4 hours (range 5.1 to 25.9) for the second graft in DKG. Delayed graft function (DGF) occurred in 34.1% SKG and in 28.5% DKG. Acute rejection rates were 9.1% for SKG and 0% for DKG. Three-year actuarial patient survival rates were 97.7% for SKG and 92.9% for DKG; for kidneys, 95.4% and 92.9%. One-year mean serum creatinine levels were 1.8 mg/dL (range 1.1 to 4.0) for SKG and 1.2 mg/dL (range 1.0 to 1.8) for DKG (P =.01). CIT longer than 16 hours was related to increased rates of DGF for both SKG (45.4% vs 22.7%) or DKG (42.9% vs 14.3%) and reduced 3-year graft survival rates (SKG: 90.9% vs 100%; DKG: 85.7% vs 100%).

With stringent selection criteria and short CIT (<16 hours), elderly donor kidneys may show good results, thus meaningfully expanding the donor pool.