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Abstract Background and Aims Kidney transplantation is the optimal treatment for end-stage renal disease. To meet the growing demand for kidney allografts and to ensure the well-being of donors, laparoscopic nephrectomy has been adopted leading to superior donor outcomes. However, data on recipient outcomes of laparoscopically retrieved grafts are underreported. The aim of the study is to estimate the impact of laparoscopic compared to open living donor nephrectomy (LDN, ODN) on recipient outcomes in the first-year post-transplant. Method This was an observational cohort study of primary data on 396 recipients who had undergone living kidney transplantation from January 2011 to December 2021 at the Clinic of Nephrology and Renal Transplantation of ‘Laiko’ hospital. Since October 2018 laparoscopic surgery has supplanted ODN in the reporting center. Graft function, the risk of adverse events, patient and graft survival within the first-year post-transplantation, were evaluated. A propensity score analysis was applied (2:1 nearest-neighbor matching, with a caliper width of 0.05). As a robustness check, the analysis was rerun on the sub-groups of low and high immunological risk patients. Results After propensity score matching, 389 patients were analyzed. One-year post-transplantation, renal function (−0.074 mg/dl, p: 0.063) patient (99.44% vs 100%, p: 0.27) and graft (99.43% vs 100%, p: 0.13) survival were statistically equal among LDN and ODN recipients. Laparoscopically retrieved grafts demonstrated statistically higher risk of delayed graft function (10.1%, p: 0.032) and higher risk for transfusion (12.9%, p:0.022). The risk for acute rejection, surgical complications and infections (Fig. 1), as well as the length of hospital stay did not differ between the two groups. Kidney function at one year was similar in LDN and ODN patients, regardless of the immunological risk. Low immunological risk patients demonstrated comparable risk of adverse events in the first post-transplant year. High-immunological risk patients after LDN after LDN exhibited greater risk for reoperation (16%, p: 0.0078) urologic complications (19.6%, p: 0.042) and bacterial infections (7.1%, p: 0.027) compared to ODN recipients during the first year after transplantation. Conclusion The results indicate that one-year post-transplantation, renal function, patient and graft survival are equivalent among recipients of allografts procured either laparoscopically or by open surgery, with similar risk of adverse events.
Skalioti et al. (Wed,) studied this question.