Comparison of kidney allograft survival in the Eurotransplant senior program after changing the allocation criteria in 2010-A single center experience.

AimsThe European Senior Program (ESP) aims to avoid waiting list competition between younger and elderly patients applying for renal transplantation. By listing patients ≥65 years on a separate waiting list and locally allocating of grafts ≥65 years exclusively to this cohort, waiting and cold ischemia times are predicted to be shortened, potentially resulting in improved kidney transplantation outcomes. This study compared a historic cohort of renal transplant recipients being simultaneously listed on the general and the ESP waiting lists with a collective exclusively listed on the ESP list in terms of surrogates of the transplantation outcome.MethodsTotal 151 eligible patients ≥ 65 years from Münster transplant Center, Germany, between 1999 and 2014 were included. Graft function, graft and patient survival were compared using surrogate markers of short- and long-term graft function. Patients were grouped according to their time of transplantation.ResultsRecipients and donors in the newESP (nESP) cohort were significantly older (69.6 ± 3.5 years vs 67.1 ± 2 years, pConclusionnESP recipients received significantly older grafts, but experienced significantly shorter time on dialysis. Cold ischemia times were comparable, but graft function in the nESP cohort was significantly better in the long term.