Transplantation News

The economic burden of kidney graft failure in the United States impacts patient survival and quality of life, and causes an increase in incremental health care spending, according to a published study.

The National Kidney Foundation will present its Excellence In Kidney Transplantation Award to Gabriel Danovitch, MD, at the NKF Spring Clinical Meetings in New Orleans in March, according to the press release.

Donate Life America is partnering with the Fresenius Medical Care Foundation to reduce barriers to living donation.

According to a study, transplant recipients who received kidneys from a national paired kidney exchange program experienced similar post-transplant outcomes as those who received kidneys from other living donors. These results led David B. Leeser, MD, of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, to contend that “national paired kidney donor transplantation is an excellent way for patients to have a successful living donor kidney transplant.”

Subclinical structural features of donated kidneys — identified through biopsy — appeared to contribute to graft failure in the recipient, according recently published study results.

Initial biopsies of deceased donor kidneys, also known as procurement biopsies, often provided information that was neither reproducible nor associated with allograft outcomes, according to a recently published study. Therefore, researchers contended that procurement biopsy results should not be the deciding factor as to whether a kidney is suitable for transplant.

Renal function reserve was more significantly reduced in kidney donors with certain characteristics, making it a potentially useful tool for assessing donor risk pre-transplant, according to this study.

According to data from the United Network for Organ Sharing, nearly 11,900 people who died in 2019 donated one or more organs, making it the ninth consecutive record-breaking year for deceased donation in the United States.

Long-term mortality rates were similar between living kidney donors and non-donors who had comparable health status, according to recently published research. Study investigators also identified risk factors for mortality and clinical outcomes among these donors.

According to the results of a recently published study, patients with ESKD who are placed on intensive home hemodialysis — more than 20 hours a week — have similar survival rates to patients who receive a deceased donor transplant.