Receiving a kidney from a deceased diabetic donor may be the best chance of survival for patients who are facing long transplant waitlists, according to a study published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Researchers identified 437,619 kidney transplant candidates from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network database. Of the total number of transplant candidates, 8,101 were recipients of diabetic donor kidneys and 126,560 were recipients of nondiabetic donor kidneys. The researchers studied adverse event risk for patients who accepted the diabetic donor kidney and for patients who remained on the waitlist or received a nondiabetic donor kidney.
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The study shows that the kidney transplant patients who are at the highest risk of dying on the waitlist — for example geriatric patients and patients at centers with long waitlist times — experience a nearly "10 percent improvement in long term survival" with a diabetic donor kidney, said Deirdre L. Sawinski, MD, an assistant medical director of kidney pancreas transplantation at Philadelphia-based University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine and a senior author of the study.
However, the study also found that diabetic donor kidneys of low quality, determined by a donor index, do not benefit high-risk kidney transplant patients. Additionally, patients younger than 40 years of age also do not experience any survival benefit from diabetic donor kidneys.