Hot topics in kidney transplantation by Dr. Dorry Segev – Paradigm 4: Are living kidney donors better or equivalent to deceased donors

According to the old paradigm, it has been assumed that all live kidney donors are equivalent and better than any deceased donors. However, the new paradigm claims that the paradigm is incorrect and that there is a wide range of live-donor quality, which can be estimated with the Kidney Donor Profile Index (KDPI).

KDPI and The Assessment of Live Donors Compared Them to Deceased Donors

KDPI is an index that measures the quality of the decreased donor kidneys and ranks them from best to worst. Such a measurement scale was constructed for living donors and mapped to the deceased donor space. As speculated, the younger donor will be the better option for considering a transplant. There are many factors like age which are associated with the donor to predict how well the donor organ would perform in the recipients.

It is essential to allow and help people choose between the living donor that is being evaluated and the deceased kidney donor’s offer. This also helps people choose from multiple living donors available, and sometimes people have more than one living donor available from their social network and at other times kidney exchange program is performed to find patients a different living donors.