Transplantation of kidneys from uncontrolled donation after circulatory determination of death: comparison with brain death donors with or without extended criteria and impact of normothermic regional perfusion

Summary The aim of this study was to compare the outcomes of kidney transplants from uncontrolled DCD (uDCD) with kidney transplants from extended (ECD) and standard criteria donors (SCD). In this multicenter study, we included recipients from uDCD (n = 50), and from ECD (n = 57) and SCD (n = 102) who could be eligible for a uDCD program. We compared patient and graft survival, and kidney function between groups. To address the impact of preservation procedures in uDCD, we compared in situ cold perfusion (ICP) with normothermic regional perfusion (NRP). Patient and graft survival rates were similar between the uDCD and ECD groups, but were lower than the SCD group (P < 0.01). Although delayed graft function (DGF) was more frequent in the uDCD group (66%) than in the ECD (40%) and SCD (27%) groups (P = 0.08 and P < 0.001), graft function was comparable between the uDCD and ECD groups at 3 months onwards post‐transplantation. The use of NRP in the uDCD group (n = 19) was associated with a lower risk of DGF, and with a better graft function at 2 years post‐transplantation, compared to ICP‐uDCD (n = 31) and ECD. In conclusion, the use of uDCD kidneys was associated with post‐transplantation results comparable to those of ECD kidneys. NRP preservation may improve the results of uDCD transplantation.