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Comparison of competing ex vivo preservation techniques and investigation of the mechanisms of graft recovery during ex-vivo perfusion in marginal kidney grafts

Subject Area General and Visceral Surgery
Term from 2019 to 2022
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 425903082
 
Final Report Year 2022

Final Report Abstract

This work showed that the addition of oxygen during HMP does not reduce preservation injury in all DCD kidney grafts. In our porcine model of 30min DCD, oxygenation during cold preservation did not show any beneficial results on the short term. Moreover, we found that oxygenated HMP followed by end-ischemic NEVKP is as effective as continuous NEVKP and superior to oxygenated HMP alone. This combination is a practical alternative for a clinical setting, because oxygenated HMP could be easily performed during transportation, while end-ischemic NEVKP can be done back-to-base for graft assessment and treatment. We also found that SEVKP is associated with reduced metabolic activity during perfusion, but results in similar graft function post porcine DCD kidney transplantation compared to NEVKP. Finally, in a pilot clinical trial, we could demonstrate that kidney function after transplantation in grafts which received end-ischemic NEVKP is not inferior to the standard of care, demonstrating the safety and feasibility of NEVKP in a clinical setting. The importance of the clinical study that we performed lies on its immense potential to increase the donor pool. At the moment, grafts are accepted solely based on donor criteria. Implementing NEVKP on a large scale not only has the potential to improve graft preservation and injury, but also offers a platform for graft assessment and treatment. Clinical experience with NEVKP will allow us to develop scores to evaluate kidney graft performance on pump and enable us to design criteria for graft assessment that will objectively correlate with graft function after transplantation.

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