The kidneys that nobody wanted: support for the utilization of expanded criteria donors

The continuing shortage of cadaveric donors necessitates constant reappraisal of donor refusal criteria. From 1/1/95 to 3/20/96, 180 renal transplants were performed at our center. Of these, 26 were kidney/pancreas, 30 pediatric, 37 live donor adult, and 87 adult cadaveric renal transplants (CRT). In the CRT group there were 31 recipients of kidneys that all other local transplant centers declined. We retrospectively compared this group of kidneys that nobody wanted (KNW) to the remaining 56 CRTs (controls) performed at our center during the same period. Of the 31 recipients of KNW, 18 received kidneys declined for reasons of advanced age, defined as > or =60 years (including 8 who also had a history of hypertension, 4 who also had >10% sclerosed glomeruli on biopsy, and 3 also declined based upon donor quality because of acute injury), 8 for donor quality alone (e.g., prolonged hypotension), 3 on the basis of biopsy results alone, and 2 for anatomic abnormalities. Twelve recipients of KNW were "dual transplanted" with both donor kidneys. Of 27 donor variables compared between the KNW and control groups, only donor age (52+/-17 versus 40+/-17 years, respectively) and lowest total 4-hr urine output (327+/-208 versus 507+/-437 cc, respectively) proved to be significantly different (p< or =0.05). Of the 25 recipient variables examined, a significant difference was found only in serum creatinine at one month posttransplant (2.6+/-1.8 versus 1.8+/-1.0 mg/dl, respectively), although there was no difference in serum creatinine at three and six months. Actuarial one year patient (100 vs. 95%) and graft (97 vs. 91%) survival, KNW vs. controls respectively, are excellent to date. Further analyses showed no differences in outcome variables between recipients of KNW versus controls when the donor age was > or =60 years. Similar outcome was achieved by transplanting both kidneys from a KNW donor into a single recipient as compared with single-kidney transplantation from control donors. Careful donor-recipient pairing using kidneys from advanced-age donors for smaller, advanced-age recipients provided good short-term outcome. In conclusion, there was no significant difference in short-term outcome in recipients of KNW versus controls despite differences in donor age and lowest total 4-hr urine output. We believe that, with careful consideration, existing donor selection criteria can be expanded to include certain donors previously considered unusable.