The Irish living kidney donor program - why potential donors do not proceed to live kidney donation?

Background: Living donation is not only a method to increase access to kidney transplantation but can also offer superior outcomes. We report the experience of the living donor (LD) program in the Republic of Ireland and explore reasons why potential donors do not proceed to live donation.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study of all potential donors from January 2000 to March 2014 who presented wishing to undergo donor work-up and their subsequent outcomes.

Improved graft survival in highly sensitized patients undergoing renal transplantation after the introduction of a clinically validated flow cytometry crossmatch.

Background: Flow cytometric techniques are increasingly used in pretransplant crossmatching, although there remains debate regarding the clinical significance and predictive value of donor-specific antibodies detected by flow cytometry. At least some of the discrepancies between published studies may arise from differences in cutoffs used and lack of standardization of the test.

Methods: We selected cut-off values for pretransplant flow cytometric crossmatching (FCXM) based on the correlation of retrospective results with the occurrence of antibody-mediated rejection.