Hypothermic renal preservation with a sucrose/ polyethylene glycol solution in a rabbit renal transplant model

Renal preservation at for 24 hours at hypothermia was studied in a rabbit model after flush cooling with sucrose-based solution (SBS), compared with a standard preservation solution (in this case, Marshall's Hypertonic Citrate solution - HCA). Polyethylene glycol supplementation to SBS (SBS-PEG) was also investigated. Renal function was measured by plasma creatinine assays during 1 months post transplantation, and pathology of the explanted kidneys was undertaken. Results showed that survival at 28 days was similar in all groups, (HCA - 3 out of 6; SBS - 2 out of 5; SBS-PEG - 3 out of 5), and there were no differences in recovery of plasma creatinine values. Histopathological evaluation of the grafts indicated that SBS preservation resulted in more severe damage after transplantation (P less than 0.05 in both corticomedullary region and medulla compared to HCA), whilst addition of PEG reduced the damage score to that seen with HCA. SBS can be used as a simple, inexpensive preservation solution for kidney cold storage provided that PEG is used as an additional colloid.