Travel for transplantation and transplant commercialism in Argentina: a 4-decade experience from a University Hospital.

ABSTRACT

Travel for transplantation and transplant commercialism have become major issues in the last years, generating a passionate medical, legal, and ethical debate. We evaluated the general characteristics of patients who received a kidney transplant abroad and were subsequently followed in our institution. Then, we carried out a retrospective analysis of travelers' outcomes and compared them with a matched cohort of patients transplanted in our center. Between 1971 and 2008, 58 kidney transplants were performed outside Argentina and were subsequently followed up at our institution. The main destinations were the USA (32.8%), Bolivia (29.3%), and Brazil (17.2%). Deceased donor transplants were the most common (53.4%) followed by unrelated living donors (32.8%). No difference was observed between travelers and controls in terms of one-month and one-yr renal function and one-yr and five-yr graft survival. Travelers had significantly less time on dialysis before transplantation than controls. The major destination among all travelers was the USA, and the main destination for commercial transplants was Bolivia. The destination countries involved in our study and the apparent non-inferiority of travelers graft outcomes differ from those of previous reports.