Horseshoe kidneys: an underutilized resource in kidney transplant

Although the number of patients awaiting renal transplant is rapidly increasing, the donor pool has remained relatively stable. Horseshoe kidneys, a common renal fusion anomaly, can provide a useful solution to the ever increasing gap between supply and demand.

These kidneys can be transplanted, en bloc, into a single recipient or divided and transplanted into 2 recipients.

We report 2 cases of successful kidney transplants.

The first is a split horseshoe kidney, transplanted into a single recipient, and the second, a horseshoe kidney from a donor after cardiac death split and transplanted into a single recipient. The second case is the first reported case of a horseshoe kidney transplant from a donor after cardiac death. We also performed a review of the literature of horseshoe kidneys with the hope of raising awareness of the necessity and promise of such transplants.