[Risk factors for refusing kidneys in Galicia. Is it possible to increase its use?]

Demographic changes along with an increase in the demand of organs and an increase in the expertise of transplantation teams, lead to a constant modification of donors' characteristics and, accordingly, of the supply of the organs used and refused.

Analyze the use and refusal of kidneys generated in Galicia. Subjects and method. A follow-up of kidney donors was carried out between 1996 and 2000, studying the reasons for non extraction and refusal of kidneys and analyzing the influence that donors' characteristics have on them. In order to evaluate the risk factors of not using grafts, multiple logistic regression patterns were made, assessing odds ratios with confidence intervals at 95%.

836 kidneys were recovered from 433 donors, and 697 were implanted out of them. 17% of the organs extracted, a percentage approaching 25% in the two latest years, were discarded, due to the biopsy findings (27%), donor's previous conditions (22%), anatomical disorders (16%), prolonged cold ischemia (12%) or recipient not located or unsuitable (14%). The average age of refused grafts was significantly higher than that of implanted ones, in such a way that having more than 45 years old was an independent risk for refusing kidneys (OR = 1.76 and p = 0.05, for 45-59 years old; OR = 6.1 and p = 0.000, for older than 60 years old). The same happened with history of hypertension (OR = 1.59 and p = 0.044), high serum creatinine level (OR = 1.83 and p = 0.005) and positive serology for HCV (OR = 5.65 and p = 0.001) and anti-HBc (OR = 2.91 and p = 0.017).

Elderly donors and donors with concomitant diseases enable us to increase the number of grafts, although they also lead to an increase in refusals, which nearly amounts to 20% of the ones generated. However, more than the half were refused due to pontentially avoidable reasons and therefore these could have been valued for transplantation to limit recipients.