Children as receptors of living donors

Abstract

The most important factor in life expectancy for children on renal replacement therapy (RRT) is to have a functioning graft when they reach adulthood (63 years  on transplantation vs 37 years on dialysis). The pediatric recipient is very suitable for a living donor transplantation (LDT), with few contraindications. There are several reasons that make LDT the most recommended RRT in children: pre-emptive transplant avoiding dialysis, good renal mass, minimal cold ischemia time, better HLA-matching and the possibility to program the time of surgery. Long term graft survival in LDT is significantly better than in cadaveric donor transplantation (CDT) (81.3%  LDT vs 60.8 % CDT at 10 years follow-up). Calculated half-life graft survival for recipients aged 2-5 years reaches 27.5 years in some series, making LDT the ideal option for these children. Adolescent recipients (12-17 years) have an excellent early graft survival, but the worst long term outcome compared with the rest of pediatric population. However, preemptive LDT has a 70% of graft survival at 10 years. Late rejections episodes associated with non-adherence factors are found in all series. Unrelated LDT in pediatric recipients outcome remain unclear.