gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: The concept of high-urgency (HU) renal transplantation was introduced in order to offer to patients, who are not able to undergo long-term dialysis treatment, a suitable renal graft in a short period of time, overcoming this way the obstacle of the prolonged time spent on the waiting list. The goal of this study was to evaluate the patient and graft survival after HU renal transplantation and compare them to the long-term outcomes of the non high-urgency renal transplant recipients.

Material and methods: The clinical course of 33 HU renal transplant recipients operated on at our center between 1995 and 2010 was retrospectively analyzed. The major indication for the HU renal transplantation was the imminent lack of access for either hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis (67%).

Results: The patient survival of the study population was 67%, 56% and 56% whereas the graft survival was 47%, 35% and 35% at 5-, 10- and 15-years respectively. In the comparison between our study population and the non HU renal transplant recipients, our study population presented statistically significant (p < 0.05) lower patient survival rates.

Conclusion: To conclude, our study demonstrated poor long-term outcomes after high-urgency renal transplantation, as the patient and graft survival, especially in the early period after the transplantation, were statistically significant lower compared to the results of the non HU renal transplant recipients. Living in a period of shortage of organs, further studies are needed in order to evaluate the results after high-urgency renal transplantation and identify the patients who really benefit from a HU renal transplantation.