Development of a program for kidney transplants using organs donated from donors awaiting cardiac arrest (type III...

The availability of organ donors is a limiting factor for kidney transplants. Donations from non-heart-beating donors (NHBD) can provide as many as one-third of all organs. Controlled patients awaiting cardiac arrest following limitation of life support techniques, or type III Maastricht donors, constitute an alternative that still has yet to be systematically developed.

Descriptive series of 10 cases occurring between January and April 2012.

Over a period of 6 months, we designed a protocol for extracting and managing kidney transplants and providing immunosuppression therapy. Patients are evaluated in accordance with the criteria agreed by a different team responsible for transplant coordination. We established a maximum duration of time between limitation of life-sustaining therapy and death of 120 minutes and 60 minutes warm ischaemia. Two types of graft perfusion were used, one in situ through direct application to the surgical area, and another using ante mortem vascular canalisation. Immunosuppression therapy included induction with thymoglobulin, steroids, and mycophenolate, with introduction of tacrolimus on the seventh day. Data are expressed as median and (range).

We included the first 10 cases of kidney transplants with organs from 5 NHBD (type III Maastricht): 4 males, mean age of 57 years (45-66 years), with limitation of life-sustaining therapy due to anoxic encephalopathy (2), intoxication (1), acute stroke (2) and terminal respiratory failure (1). The following mean time intervals were recorded: effective warm ischaemia: 20 minutes (8-23 minutes) and cold ischaemia: 7.5 hours (4-14.1 hours). Recipients had a mean age of 58 years (32-71 years), with various aetiologies (2 cases of glomerulonephritis, 1 polycystic kidney disease, 2 tubulo-interstitial nephropathy, 4 vascular, and 1 unknown), with a mean 31.7 months on haemodialysis (11-84 months); the kidney was a second transplant in two cases. No patients were hyper-immunised. Six patients required a dialysis session at some point, and four had prolonged acute tubular necrosis, over a mean hospitalisation period of 24.5 days (8-44 days). Mean creatinine (Cr) one month after transplantation was 2.1mg/dl (0.7-3.2mg/dl), and mean nadir creatinine was 1.2mg/dl (0.7-3.2mg/dl). One patient did not improve upon Cr values <3.2mg/dl, despite the absence of evidence of toxicity or rejection in a renal biopsy, and the transplant pair reached a Cr of 1.4mg/dl. Throughout the series, similar surgical complications were recorded to those observed in conventional donor situations.

Despite the limitations of this preliminary study, the use of this type of transplant produces favourable short-term evolution. Expanded use of this type of donor could reduce the waiting-list time for a kidney transplant.