Is preimplantation renal biopsy essential prior to deceased donor renal transplant?

Abstract

The striking discrepancy in the number of end-stage renal disease patients added to the transplant wait list and the shortage of standard criteria donors has stimulated the development of strategies aimed to expand acceptance criteria from marginal deceased donors. Renal biopsy done before transplant will be useful to predict short- and long-term outcomes of kidney transplantation. It also serves as a reference in interpretation of subsequent biopsies. It also helps in deciding whether it should be discarded. However, systemic reviews concluded that there was no consistent association between donor biopsy findings and posttransplant outcomes. A well-designed randomized control trial could ascertain the extent of procurement biopsy leading to discards, whether outcomes are indeed better when preimplantation biopsies are used to justify declining kidneys for transplantation.

Keywords

• End-stage renal disease
• renal biopsy
• renal transplant