Ways to Boost Kidney Transplant Viability: A Real Need for the Best Use of Older Donors

Using kidneys from expanded criteria donors (ECD) increased transplant activity but resulted in a reduced graft survival. The relatively poor long-term outcome of ECD grafts may be the consequence of an imbalance between the number of viable nephrons supplied and the metabolic demand of the recipient. Providing more nephrons by dual transplants may improve outcomes but fails, per se, to confer the same benefit of single transplants from young donors. A biopsy-based score system has been presented by a panel of pathologists to assess whether kidneys from donors older than 60 years still contain enough viable nephrons to be made available for transplantation, and whether single or dual transplantation should be used. Allocating kidneys from older donors to a single or dual transplant on the basis of this scoring system allowed achieving a graft survival similar to that of single transplants from ideal donors and remarkably superior to that of single transplants from older donors not evaluated histologically before implantation. Thus, preimplantation histologic evaluation maximizes the success of ECD transplants and protects recipients from receiving organs at increased risk of premature failure. This may limit the number of patients who eventually must resume dialysis and need second transplants.