Small Split Pediatric Kidneys to Expand the Donor Pool: An Analysis of Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) Data

Abstract

Increased use of pediatric deceased donor kidneys could enlarge the deceased donor kidney pool. Kidney transplant outcomes from small pediatric donors were compared with those from ideal kidney (IK) and expanded criteria kidney (ECK) donors to understand the optimal use of pediatric donor kidneys. Kaplan-Meier analyses compared long term patient and death censored graft survival of en-bloc kidney (EBK) and split kidney (SpK) transplants from small pediatric donors (age ≤8 years and 10 kg were better than with ECK. 3,901 transplants were performed from 3,660 pediatric donors (53% yield). Pediatric kidneys can augment the kidney donor pool and should not be considered ECK. Had 90% of kidneys from donors (age ≤ 8 years and weight < 30 kg) with at least one organ transplanted been used (as SpK when > 10 kg) an additional 159 kidney transplants per year could have been performed. Expanding the use of pediatric kidneys should be further explored by the transplant community.