Impact of acute kidney injury on graft outcomes of deceased donor kidney transplantation: A nationwide registry-based matched cohort study in Korea

Background Favorable long-term and short-term graft survival and patient survival after kidney transplantation (KT) from deceased donors with acute kidney injury (AKI) have been reported. However, few studies have evaluated effects of donor AKI status on graft outcomes after KT in Asian population. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate graft function after KTs from donors with AKI compared to matched KTs from donors without AKI using a multicenter cohort in Korea. Methods We analyzed a total of 1,466 KTs collected in Korean Organ Transplant Registry between April 2014 and December 2017. KTs from AKI donors (defined as donors with serum creatinine level ≥ 2 mg/dL) and non-AKI donors (275 cases for each group) were enrolled using a 1:1 propensity score matching. Graft outcomes including graft and patient survival, delayed graft function (DGF), rejection rate, and serially measured estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) were evaluated. Results After propensity matching, KTs from AKI donors showed higher rate of DGF (44.7% vs. 24.0%, p Conclusions KTs from AKI donors showed comparable outcomes to KTs from non-AKI donors, despite a higher incidence of DGF. Results of this study supports the validity of using kidneys from deceased AKI donors in Asian population