Cold Ischaemic Injury in Kidney Transplantation

Kidney transplantation is considered the best treatment for end stage renal failure (ESRF) with longer life expectancy and superior quality of life compared to dialysis therapy [1-3]. However, a major constraint to transplantation is the lack of suitable organ donors. To increase the number of available organs there has been an incentive to use ‘marginal’ donors such as donation after cardiac death (DCD) and expanded criteria donors (ECD), in addition to kidneys from the traditional living and deceased donors [4,5]. Although an important source of organs for transplantation, once transplanted a significant proportion of these kidneys have early graft dysfunction.