Effect of Utilizing More Than 20-Year Older Deceased Donor Kidneys for Young Recipients: An Analysis of the UK Registry.

Abstract

Despite the wider acceptance of expanded criteria kidneys and the advances in immunosuppression, clinicians remain sceptical when it comes to accepting kidneys from significantly older donors, especially for the young adult recipient population (age ≤40 years). We utilized prospectively maintained data from the United Kingdom Registry and analyzed the deceased donor renal transplant outcomes for 2 cohorts: (1) young recipients who received either a younger kidney or a kidney from a donor who was less than 20 years older (group <20; n = 2072) and (2) young recipients who received a kidney from donors who were 20 or more years older (group ≥20, n = 764). We used life tables for survival and performed Cox regression analysis to identify significant variables. Median follow-up was 2918 days. The univariate analysis for graft loss showed the strongest predictors to be donor age, recipient age, recipient ethnicity, and delayed graft function, which retained their significance in the multivariate model. Graft survival rates were 94% versus 90% at 1 year, 86% versus 75% at 5 years, and 75% versus 63% at 10 years for group <20 versus group ≥20, respectively. Respective patient survival rates were comparable for both cohorts: 99% versus 98% at 1 year, 97% versus 96% at 5 years, and 91% versus 91% at 10 years. Our analysis showed that allografts from ≥20-year-older deceased donors are beneficial and should be considered for transplant in younger recipients. Allograft survival may be worse compared with survival with younger allografts; however, young recipients do potentially better and survive longer compared with remaining on dialysis.