Improved short-term outcomes of kidney transplants in controlled donation after the circulatory determination of death with the use of normothermic regional perfusion

Abstract

Normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) allows the in situ perfusion of organs with oxygenated blood in donation after the circulatory determination of death (DCDD). We aimed at evaluating the impact of NRP on the short-term outcomes of kidney transplants in controlled DCDD (cDCDD). This is a multicenter, nationwide, retrospective study comparing cDCDD kidneys obtained with NRP versus the standard rapid recovery (RR) technique. During 2012-2018, 2302 cDCDD adult kidney transplants were performed in Spain using NRP (n =865) or RR (n =1437). The study groups differed in donor and recipient age, warm, and cold ischemic time and use of ex situ machine perfusion. Transplants in the NRP group were more frequently performed in high-volume centers (≥90 transplants/year). Through matching by propensity score, two cohorts with a total of 770 patients were obtained. After the matching, no statistically significant differences were observed between the groups in terms of primary nonfunction (p=.261) and mortality at 1year (p=.111). However, the RR of kidneys was associated with a significantly increased odds of delayed graft function (OR 1.97 [95% CI 1.43-2.72]; p<.001) and 1-year graft loss (OR 1.77 [95% CI 1.01-3.17]; p=.034). In conclusion, compared with RR, NRP appears to improve the short-term outcomes of cDCDD kidney transplants.