Impact of static cold storage VS hypothermic machine preservation on ischemic kidney graft: inflammatory cytokines and adhesion molecules as markers of ischemia/reperfusion tissue damage. Our preliminary results.

At the present time, deceased heart-beating donor kidney allografts are usually stored cold. Extended-criteria donor (ECD) grafts show higher sensitivity to ischemia-reperfusion damage than standard kidneys. The increasing use of marginal organs in clinical transplantation urgently requires a more effective preservation system. Pulsatile hypothermic machine perfusion has shown major advantages over static cold storage in terms of reduced organ injury during preservation and improved early graft function. This preliminary study aims to compare pulsatile hypothermic machine perfusion and static cold storage of kidney allografts, outlining differences in the levels of early inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-2 and IL-1ß) and soluble intracellular adhesion molecule (sICAM-1) in perfusion and preservation liquid.