Long-Term Function of Kidneys From an Acute Renal Failure Donor on Continuous Venovenous Hemofiltration: A Case Report

Abstract

The organ shortage has induced many transplant centers to use suboptimal grafts, such as those from expanded criteria donors and donors after cardiac death. Acute renal failure donors, sometimes present in intensive therapy units, have been used in a very low number of cases due to the fear of primary nonfunction of this type of graft. There are few published studies about the utilization of donors with severe acute renal failure and there is no general consensus identifying unequivocal criteria for their use by different transplant centers. We transplanted 2 kidneys from a 67-year-old donor who suffered from acute renal failure as a consequence of extracorporeal circulation in cardiac surgery and died of a massive cerebral edema with cistern obliteration. The kidneys were discarded by other transplant centers due to the patient's acute renal failure, treated by continuous venovenous hemofiltration. Both transplants were successful and both grafts showed very good renal function after 6 months. One recipient suffered from delayed graft function and renal drug toxicity, which resolved 1 month post transplant. The long-term graft function at 10 years is acceptable, with very low proteinuria. As a growing gap between the inadequate supply and constantly high demand for kidney transplantation has led doctors to explore novel policies to increase the number of available organs over the last 2 decades, acute renal failure treated by continuous venovenous hemofiltration does not seem to be a contraindication for the utilization of grafts.