Ex vivo reconstruction of the donor renal artery in renal transplantation: a case-control study

Transplantation of renal allografts with anatomic variability or injured vasculature poses a challenge to the transplanting surgeon but can be salvaged for transplantation with ex vivo bench reconstruction of the vasculature. We investigated whether renal allograft function is impaired in these reconstructed allografts; compared to the donor-matched, un-reconstructed allograft. Reconstructed allografts were transplanted into 60 patients at our institution between 1986 and 2012. A control group was selected from the matched pair of the recipient in deceased donor transplantation. We found no significant difference in the overall graft and patient survival rates (P = 1.0, P = 0.178). Serum creatinine levels were not significantly higher in the study group at 1, 3 and 12 months postoperatively. There were two cases of vascular thrombosis in the study group that were not related to the ex vivo reconstruction. A significantly greater proportion of reconstructed patients were investigated with a colour duplex ultrasound postoperatively (0.007). Although we have demonstrated a higher index of suspicion of transplant failure in patients with a reconstructed allograft, this practice has proven to be a safe and useful technique with equivocal outcome when compared to normal grafts; increasing the organ pool available for transplantation.