Impact of donor age on renal allograft function and survival

The lack of cadaveric donors coupled with a rapidly growing number of potential recipients have stimulated the implementation of several strategies, including the acceptance of older donors, to increase the organ pool and reduce the waiting list for kidney transplantation. However several studies have demonstrated higher incidences of delayed graft function and poor graft outcomes among kidneys harvested from older donors.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of donor age on the function and long-term survival of renal allografts.

We performed a retrospective review of the clinical data from 441 adult kidney transplantation from cadaveric heart-beating donors performed in our unit from May 1989 to May 2007.

Recipients of kidney allografts from older donors were significantly older (49.2 vs 43.7 years; P < .0001) and had a higher incidence of delayed graft function (15.1% vs 5.4%; P = .005). Renal function was superior following kidney transplantation using younger donors not only at 3 months (P < .0001) and 12 months (P < .0001) posttransplantation, but also upon long-term follow-up at 60 months (P < .0001) and 96 months (P = .030). Allograft survival censored for death with a functioning graft and patient survival were not different when comparing older versus younger donors. Multivariate analysis confirmed the lack of correlation between donor age and allograft failure.

Donor age showed no influence on allograft survival. However, kidney allografts from older donors displayed lower first year and long-term renal function.