A study out of Poland by Kruszyna and Richter sought to determine whether with increased cold ischemic times (CIT) and increased use of extended criteria donors (ECD), would hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) still have the potential to improve outcomes in kidney transplantation. This retrospective single-center study included 193 deceased donor kidney transplantations where 78 kidneys were preserved by HMP and the remaining 113 kidneys were subjected to static cold storage (CS).

Their results found:

• The median cold ischemic times were higher in the HMP group (23.3 hours vs. 20 hours)
• There was significantly less delayed graft function (DGF) in the HMP group (21.8% vs. 42.6%)
• In a paired subgroup analysis, HMP showed significantly less DGF (22.4% vs. 46.6%)

They found that they were able to show a substantial benefit for the immediate kidney function independently related to the storage method in both standard and ECD kidneys. They concluded that HMP can be used to reduce the risk of unfavorable outcomes, compensating for longer storage times.

Read the full article here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.transproceed.2021.01.022