ABSTRACT
Objective To summarize the effect of en bloc kidney transplantation (EBKT) from cardiac deceased infant donors into adult recipients and to share a new simplified EBKT technique.Methods Fourteen dual kidneys from infant donors (9 males,and 5 females) were transplanted into adult recipients (3 males,and 11 females).The donor ages ranged from 17 days to 8 months,and the recipient ages ranged from 19 years to 61 years.The recipients were categorized into 2 groups in terms of the microvascular surgical techniques.Case 1 to case 9 was given traditional techniques and case 10 to case 14 simplified techniques.In detail,the dual kidneys were recovered en bloc with the aorta and inferior vena cava.After splitting the rear wall of the donor aorta and inferior vena cava,suitable size of patches were made by cutting along the vascular openings of renal arteries and renal veins.We anastomosed the aorta patch to the external iliac artery in an end-to-side fashion.The donor inferior vena cava patch was anastomosed to the external iliac vein in an end-to-side fashion.The distal ends of ureters were implanted into the bladder separately.Results In traditional group,two cases underwent peri-operative graft loss because of renal artery thrombosis,and one patient died of pneumonia 16 days post-operation.During the follow-up period,graft loss was seen in 2 patients caused by irreversible drug-induced nephrotoxicity and donor-derived malignant tumor respectively.The mean serum creatinine level was 81.7 ± 27.4 μmol/L and eGFR level was 82.5 ± 22.2 mL/min/1.73 m2 in the other EBKT recipients at 24th week post-operation.In simplified group,no vascular complications post-operation occurred.Conclusion En bloc infant kidneys could be transplanted into adult recipients successfully with excellent graft function and survival outcome while censored perioperative patient death and surgical failure.Instead of traditional EBKT technique,simplified EBKT technique could decrease the incidence of surgical vascular complications and should be applied to more recipients.