ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: This study aims at providing a retrospective assessment of the decrease in renal volume after renal artery embolization (RAE) among a group of patients with autosomal dominant polycystic renal disease and for whom transplantation, for ergonomic reasons was temporarily advised against. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Between November 2014 and March 2017, as part of pre-transplantory procedure 15 patients, including 11 men and 4 women benfited from renal embolization (RAE) in a context of preparation for transplant in Lille University Hospital. All of the patients were suffering from autosomal dominant polycystic renal disease (ADPKD) at a severe or terminal stage of renal disease. RESULTS: The original mean total kidney volume (TKV) was 2550.6 cm3±1771 (1102 cm3; 7310 cm3), the average TKV at 3 months was 1684 cm3±1539 (648 cm3; 6930 cm3) with an average decrease of 33% in the volume (5.2%; 83.9%) (95% confidence interval [0.229-0.436]) (P<0.01) and 1632±1743 (599 cm3; 6758 cm3) at 6 months with an average decrease of 40.7% (7.6%; 64.1%) (IC95% 0.306-0.508) (P<0.01). Among the 15 patients, 13 had their contraindication removed and to date 7 have had successful transplants. One failure due to a very high initial volume (7310cm3) required a secondary nephrectomy. No post-embolization syndrome has been noticed, 2 minor complications occurred (13%) involving a difficult resumption of transit and there was one case of hematuria. CONCLUSION: ERA procedures must have a place in the ergonomic transplant strategy of patients with ADPKD with a low complication rate and a high efficiency. Nephrectomy indications before transplantation must therefore be reconsidered due to a major postoperative risk. Our results are in line with larger scale studies. Nevertheless, these results need to be confirmed by a large-scale randomized prospective study. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 4.