Early Graft Losses in Paired Kidney Exchange: Experience from 10 Years of the National Kidney Registry
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Received: 2 October 2019 | Revised: 3 December 2019 | Accepted: 30 December 2019 DOI: 10.1111/ajt.15778 BRIEF COMMUNICATION Early graft losses in paired kidney exchange: Experience from 10 years of the National Kidney Registry Jennifer Verbesey1 | Alvin G. Thomas2,3 | Matt Ronin4 | Jennifer Beaumont5 | Amy Waterman5,6 | Dorry L. Segev3,7,8 | Stuart M. Flechner9 | Matthew Cooper1 1Medstar Georgetown Transplant Institute, Washington, District of Columbia Cooperative kidney paired donation (KPD) networks account for an increasing pro- 2Department of Epidemiology, University of portion of all living donor kidney transplants in the United States. There are sparse North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina data on the rate of primary nonfunction (PNF) losses and their consequences within 3Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins KPD networks. We studied National Kidney Registry (NKR) transplants (February 14, University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 2009 to December 31, 2017) and quantified PNF, graft loss within 30 days of trans- 4 National Kidney Registry, Babylon, New plantation, and graft losses in the first-year posttransplant and assessed potential risk York factors. Of 2364 transplants, there were 38 grafts (1.6%) lost within the first year, 13 5Terasaki Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (0.5%) with PNF. When compared to functioning grafts, there were no clinically sig- 6Department of Nephrology, University of nificant differences in blood type compatibility, degree of HLA mismatch, number of California, Los Angeles, California veins/arteries, cold ischemia, and travel times. Of 13 PNF cases, 2 were due to early 7Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, venous thrombosis, 2 to arterial thrombosis, and 2 to failure of desensitization and Minneapolis, Minnesota development of antibody-mediated rejection (AMR). Given the low rate of PNF, the 8Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, NKR created a policy to allocate chain-end kidneys to recipients with PNF following Minneapolis, Minnesota 9Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, event review and attributable to surgical issues of donor nephrectomy. It is expected Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio that demonstration of low incidence of poor early graft outcomes and the presence Correspondence of a “safety net” would further encourage program participation in national KPD. Jennifer Verbesey Email: Jennifer.E.Verbesey@gunet. KEYWORDS georgetown.edu clinical research/practice, donors and donation: living, graft survival, kidney transplantation/ Funding information nephrology, kidney transplantation: living donor, primary nonfunction National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Grant/Award Number: T32HL007055 and K24DK101828 1 | INTRODUCTION preoperative evaluation of donors, as well as kidney quality resulting from the performance of the donor nephrectomy. Although deceased Kidney paired donation (KPD) has seen consistent growth over the donor kidneys are routinely procured by remote centers, living donor last 2 decades.1 Although some single-center systems have seen organs are produced by a program's own surgeons; this was espe- modest growth,2,3 regional and national systems currently account cially true prior to the establishment of large KPD systems.6 Programs for the majority of KPD transplants in the United States.4,5 These depend upon cooperation between transplant centers and teams, cooperative networks require a great deal of trust between differ- and necessitate trust in the quality of donor procurements at other ent teams of surgeons, nephrologists, nurses, donor advocates, centers. As evidenced in a recent debate at the 2019 ASTS Winter social workers, and living donor coordinators responsible for the Symposium titled, “Trust or Fly: We Need to Procure Organ for Each Abbreviations: DGF, delayed graft function; KPD, kidney paired donation; KT, kidney transplant(ation); LDKT, living donor kidney transplant(ation); NKR, National Kidney Registry; OPTN, Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network; PNF, primary nonfunction (loss within 30 days of transplant); PRA, panel reactive antibody test; SRTR, Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Am J Transplant. 2020;00:1–9. amjtransplant.com © 2020 The American Society of Transplantation | 1 and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons 2 | VERBESEY ET AL. Other,” there is still a tendency for many centers to only want to rely research activities of this study are consistent with the Declaration on their own surgeons. of Helsinki and Declaration of Istanbul. Using the NKR registry, we Participation in national exchange programs challenges this prefer- identified 2454 LDKTs facilitated by the NKR between February ence. Medium- and long-term graft survival for these transplants are 2008 and December 2017 with complete 1-year follow-up. high, which is expected of living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT) even in the context of longer KPD cold ischemic times.4,7,8 However, scarce data exist on primary nonfunction (PNF, or loss within 30 days 2.2 | National Registry of transplant), other early graft failures, and surgical complications that may continue to cause a reluctance by many transplant centers to In addition to NKR registry data, this study also used data from enter larger multicenter, diverse geographical KPD systems. the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) external The National Kidney Registry (NKR) is a KPD network that facil- release made available in March 2019. The SRTR data system in- itates live donor transplants between 85 participating centers.5,9,10 cludes data on all donors, waitlist candidates, and transplant re- The NKR’s core functions include outlining protocols for evaluating cipients in the United States, submitted by members of the Organ patients, creating matches to maximize the number of transplants Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), and has according to established computerized algorithms, arranging trans- been described previously.15 The Health Resources and Services port between centers, and organizing the collection of follow-up Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services, data. The participating transplant centers complete all transplants provides oversight to the activities of the OPTN and SRTR con- in concordance with United Network for Organ Sharing and cen- tractors. All recipients were followed for posttransplant out- ter-specific protocols. The ultimate goal is increasing the number of comes through December 31, 2018. We include 49 864 non-KPD transplants for incompatible or difficult to match pairs. The number LDKT recipients as controls. of transplants facilitated by the NKR has grown annually since its in- ception in 2008.11 As the NKR evolved, it became apparent that kid- neys, rather than donors, would travel from one center to another. 2.3 | Data linkage In the beginning, there was great trepidation about the negative im- pact of longer cold ischemic times imposed by shipping, especially Data on KPD transplants facilitated by the NKR were linked to the for highly sensitized and retransplanted patients.6,12-14 However, re- SRTR using unique, encrypted, person-level identifiers; they were ports that demonstrated a slight increase in delayed graft function cross-validated using redundantly captured characteristics (trans- (DGF) but no impact on graft or patient survival encouraged wider plant center, transplant date, donor blood type, donor sex, recipient sharing and allowed for cold ischemia times that exceed 20 hours.7,8 blood type, and recipient sex). As a result of linkage and cross-val- These reports focus on long-term outcomes, but little has been re- idation, 2364 LDKTs (96%) facilitated by the NKR were included in ported on the occurrences of graft failures within days or months of the study population. Those that did not cross-validate were trans- transplantation. planted more recently and, thus, failed to link due to reporting lag When an early graft failure occurs, the recipient is left both between transplant centers, SRTR, and NKR. without a functioning kidney and perhaps their only donor having already undergone a donor nephrectomy. Following PNF, KPD pairs may be left questioning their decisions around donation, particularly 2.4 | Statistical analysis if they were a compatible pair that voluntarily entered the exchange. Without additional potential donors, the recipient may be limited to The members of the study population were followed for a minimum retransplantation on the deceased donor list. Trust in living donor of 1-year posttransplant (ie, earliest transplant date was 1 year be- transplantation and KPD may erode between the recipient, the fam- fore administrative censoring). We estimate the risk of death-cen- ily, and the transplant center, as well as the other participating KPD sored graft failure defined as the earliest resumption of maintenance centers.6 The aim of this study was to focus on quantifying the risk of dialysis, relisting for kidney transplant, or retransplantation. Graft early graft loss and to identify potential risk factors within the NKR failure was assessed by transplant center report to the OPTN sup- system, including, and especially, surgical complications during the plemented by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Form 2728. donor nephrectomy. Potential risk factors (delayed graft function, preemptive transplant, donor sex, donor race, donor anatomy, cold ischemia time >8