Current organ allocation disadvantages kidney alone recipients over combined organ recipients.

BACKGROUND: The United Network for Organ Sharing began including the Kidney Donor Profile Index (KDPI) March 26, 2012 and began a new allocation scheme December 1, 2014. METHODS: Kidney donors from our organ procurement organization from March 2012 to December 2014 were reviewed. The KDPIs of all 919 kidney only transplants were compared with all 102 kidney/extrarenal transplants. RESULTS: The average KDPI for kidney alone allografts was 47 (range 1 to 100) (standard deviation = 25.83) vs 27 for kidney/extrarenal kidneys (range 1 to 82) (standard deviation = 20.16) (P < .001, t test). Multivariate analysis including in- vs out-of-state recipient, donor body mass index, and donation after cardiac death vs brain-dead donor showed significantly lower KDPI for kidney/extrarenal transplants. CONCLUSIONS: Kidney/extrarenal organs have decreased graft survival compared with kidneys transplanted alone. In this sample, 21% of lower KDPI kidneys were allocated as kidney/extrarenal organs. This disadvantages those waiting for a kidney alone. Attention to the outcomes of kidneys transplanted with extrarenal organs is needed.

Attaining specific donor management goals increases number of organs transplanted per donor: a quality improvement project.

Most organ procurement organization professionals and transplant surgeons intuitively know that meeting donor management goals improves organ allocation and transplant outcomes. In this era of evidence-based medicine, it is important to know whether the data support this assumption. All 6 organ procurement organizations in the United Network for Organ Sharing's region 10 agreed on 6 specific donor management goals. The organ procurement organizations then compared the number of organs transplanted per donor when goals were met with the number when goals were not met. Results were broken down by donor type: standard-criteria donation, expanded-criteria donation, and donation after cardiac death. For all 6 organ procurement organizations combined, the data for all of 2008 show a substantial and statistically significant improvement in number of organs transplanted per donor for standard criteria donation and total donors when goals are met, with a smaller degree of improvement (although not statistically significant) in the number of organs transplanted per donor for expanded-criteria donation and donation after cardiac death when goals are met.