Management of Kidney Transplantation Waiting List: Eight Years Experience

Abstract

Potential recipients pre-transplantation screening represents an essential step of kidney transplantation. Screening is mainly directed to identify conditions before transplantation and treating underlying diseases of potential recipients. Therefore, it's crucial to identify the patients at higher risk after transplantation and those who are not suitable for transplantation. A waiting period can modify the basal clinical picture necessitating a systematic clinical reassessment to confirm transplantation suitability. Our aim was to evaluate a nephrological management of waiting list recipients in a single Transplant Center in the first eight years of activity. We report our evaluation, the interaction with a network of specialists and the modification of our clinical behaviour considering the increase of high risk transplantation candidates, especially because of cardiovascular and infectious comorbidities and the consequent relationship with patients' Nephrology Units. Our experience shows that a periodical and systematic re-evaluation allows to extend patients' transplant program suitability with better outcomes after transplantation.