Dr Richard Perez presented a fascinating abstract on the use of of neonatal donor kidneys. The mean donor age was 20 days and 70% of kidneys came from DCD donors. Twenty recipients with a mean weight of 54 kg received infant kidneys. There has been no deaths but 4 early graft failures. The surgical complications rate was 55% and the rate of DGF was 40%. These promising results show that neonatal donor kidneys although challenging should be considered as a potential source of kidneys available for transplantation.
(Perez R, Santhanakrishnan C, Demattos A, McVicar J, Troppmann C. The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) as a source of deceased donor kidneys for transplantation: initial experience with 20 cases)