Usefulness of the KDPI in Spain: A comparison with donor age and definition of standard/expanded criteria donor.

INTRODUCTION: Kidney donor shortage requires expanding donor selection criteria, as well as use of objective tools to minimize the percentage of discarded organs. Some donor pre-transplant variables such as age, standard/expanded criteria donor (SCD/ECD) definition and calculation of the Kidney Donor Profile Index (KDPI), have demonstrated correlations with patient and graft outcomes. We aimed to establish the accuracy of the three models to determine the prognostic value of kidney transplantation (KT) major outcomes.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: We performed a retrospective study in deceased donor KTs at our institution. Unadjusted Cox and Kaplan-Meier survival, and multivariate Cox analyses were fitted to analyze the impact of donor age, SCD/ECD and KDPI on outcomes.

RESULTS: 389 KTs were included. Mean donor age was 53.6±15.2 years; 163 (41.9%) came from ECD; mean KDPI was 69.4±23.4%. Median follow-up was 51.9 months. The unadjusted Cox and Kaplan-Meier showed that the three prognostic variables of interest were related to increased risk of patient death, graft failure and death-censored graft failure. However, in the multivariate analysis only KDPI was related to a higher risk of graft failure (HR 1.03 [95% CI 1.01-1.05]; p=0.014).

CONCLUSIONS: SCD/ECD classification did not provide significant prognostic information about patient and graft outcomes. KDPI was linearly related to a higher risk of graft failure, providing a better assessment. More studies are needed before using KDPI as a tool to discard or accept kidneys for transplantation.