Objectives: Evidence on living donor kidney transplant procedures when both the donor and recipient have had a history of COVID-19 infection is scarce.
Materials and methods: We retrospectively explored the protocol, outcomes, and follow-up of 64 donors and recipients of living donor kidney transplant who had recovered from COVID-19. This was a multicenter (n = 12) study from India that included transplants between October 29, 2020, and December 1, 2021. Induction and immunosuppression regimens forthose with different severities of COVID-19 were similar to standard practice.
Results: COVID-19 clinical severity ranged from asymptomatic/mild (not requiring oxygen therapy) in 49 recipients (77%) and 63 donors (95.4%) and moderate/severe (requiring oxygen therapy) in 15 recipients (23%) and 1 donor (4.6%). Mean wait time±SEM (SD)from firstdocumentednegative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction testto surgery for recipients and donors was 90.9 ± 9.27 (74.1) and 47 ± 4.5 (29.2) days, respectively. Six episodes (9.3%) of biopsy-proven acute rejection were reported at follow-up of 214 ± 14.8 (119) days and median of 227 (interquartile range, 109-309) days. The locally weighted scatter plot smoothing curve for creatinine during follow-up in donor-recipients pairs showed no trends of increased creatinine in the context of wait time from COVID-19 to transplant surgery. No graft loss, death, reactivation/reinfection, and complications related to surgery or COVID-19 were reported.
Conclusions: Our report showed excellent outcomes and follow-up data of living donor kidney transplant in recovered donor-recipient pairs with the standard immunosuppression protocol. To our knowledge, this is the first and the largest study of donor-recipient living donor kidney transplant pairs when both donors and recipients had prior COVID-19.