Living Donor Age Has Little Impact on Kidney Survival

Except for recipients aged 18 to 39 years, who do best with an organ from a similarly-aged donor

FRIDAY, March 23 (HealthDay News) -- Living donor age has minimal impact on the survival of a donated kidney, except for those recipients aged 18 to 39 years, according to research published online March 22 in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Peter Chang, M.D., of St. Paul's Hospital at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and colleagues used data from the U.S. Renal Data System to identify allograft half-life (t½) and data from the patients on the United Network for Organ Sharing waiting list to determine wait list outcomes.

The researchers found that recipients aged 18 to 39 years had the best outcomes with donors aged 18 to 39 years. For other recipients, living donor age between the ages of 18 and 64 years had little effect on kidney allograft t½. After three years on the waiting list, the probability of receiving an organ from a deceased donor ranged from 21 to 66 percent, and the probability of being excluded from receiving an organ transplant ranged from 6 to 27 percent.

"In summary, with the exception of recipients 18 to 39 years of age who do best with donors 18 to 39 years of age, living donor age in ranging from 18 to 64 years has limited effects on long-term kidney allograft survival as measured by allograft t½," the authors write. "More experience is needed to determine the comparative outcome of transplants from living donors ≥65 years of age relative to younger living donors."

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