The Impact of Intraoperative Graft Blood Flow Measurement on Early Graft Function

The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of intraoperative allograft vascular flow on early kidney graft function.

A total of 159 patients underwent kidney transplantation from January 2017 to March 2022 at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Graft arterial and venous blood flow was measured separately with a transient time flowmeter (Transonic HT353; Transonic Systems, Inc, Ithaca, NY, United States) after ureteroneocystostomy. The early outcomes, including the postoperative creatinine level, were analyzed accordingly.

There were 83 males and 76 females, with a mean age of 44.5 years. The mean graft arterial flow measured was 480.6 mL/min, and the mean venous flow was 506.2 mL/min. Delayed graft function (DGF) incidence was 36.5%, 32.5%, and 40.8% in total, living, and deceased donor groups, respectively. Living donor and deceased donor kidney transplantation were analyzed separately. In the DGF subgroup, there were lower graft venous flows, higher body mass index (BMI), and more male patients in the living kidney transplant group. Similarly, the deceased donor kidney transplantation group with delayed graft function tended to have higher body height, higher body weight, higher BMI, and more diabetes mellitus. The multivariate analysis showed that lower graft venous blood flow (odds ratio [OR] = 0.995, P = .008) and higher BMI (OR = 1.144, P = .042) were significantly correlated with delayed graft function in living donor kidney transplantations. In the deceased donor group, a multivariate analysis of risk factors showed that BMI had a significant correlation with delayed graft function (OR = 1.41, P = .039).

Graft venous blood flow was significantly associated with delayed graft function in living donor kidney transplantation, and high BMI was correlated with DGF in all patients receiving kidney transplantation.