title: The alphabet soup of kidney transplantation: SCD, DCD, ECD--fundamentals for the practicing nephrologist.
abstract: There is significant variability in the quality of deceased-donor kidneys that are used for transplantation. The quality of the donor kidney has a direct effect on important clinical outcomes such as acute rejection, delayed graft function, and patient and allograft survival. Expanded-criteria donors (ECDs) refer to older kidney donors (> or =60 yr) or donors who are aged 50 to 59 yr and have two of the following three features: Hypertension, terminal serum creatinine >1.5 mg/dl, or death from cerebrovascular accident. By definition, ECD kidneys have a 70% greater likelihood of failure compared with one from a 35-yr-old male donor who died from a motor vehicle accident. Donation after cardiac death (DCD) is a small but rapidly growing fraction of donors. An ECD kidney transplant recipient has a projected average added-life-years of 5.1 yr compared with 10 yr for a kidney recipient from a standard-criteria donor. Kidney transplantation from DCD seems to have similar allograft and patient survival compared with kidney from donation after brain death; however DCD transplantation has a 42 to 51% risk for delayed graft function (need for at least one dialysis treatment during the first week after transplantation) compared with 24% in an standard-criteria donor kidney transplant. Familiarity with the comprehensive allocation rules governing different categories of deceased-donor kidneys by the nephrologists and dialysis team providers is essential to maximizing patient autonomy and to improve the outcomes of kidney transplantation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-5364, USA.
authors.forename: Panduranga S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: Akinlolu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ojo
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D009398:Nephrology; D014019:Tissue Donors; D009927:Tissue and Organ Procurement