The potential of repairing organs ex vivo

Ex vivo machine perfusion for renal graft preservation

Kidney transplantation is the treatment of choice for end-stage renal disease. Despite its superiority over dialysis, the persisting organ shortage remains a major drawback. Additional sources to increase the donor pool are grafts recovered from extended criteria donors (ECD) and donation after circulatory death (DCD). Although transplantation of marginal grafts demonstrates promising outcomes, increased rates of primary non-function, delayed graft function, and reduced graft survival have been reported. Cold ischemic injury, caused by static cold storage is a significant risk factor for poor outcome. Machine perfusion (MP) at various temperatures bears the potential to improve organ preservation, assessment, and repair. While hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) is well established in clinical practice, modified HMP, subnormothermic machine perfusion (SMP), and normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) are novel emerging strategies with the potential to significantly improve the outcome of marginal kidney grafts. This review summarizes findings and recent advances from pre-clinical and clinical machine perfusion studies, organized by temperature, and discusses potential future developments for graft assessment and repair.

Maximizing kidneys for transplantation using machine perfusion: from the past to the future: A comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

The two main options for renal allograft preservation are static cold storage (CS) and machine perfusion (MP). There has been considerably increased interest in MP preservation of kidneys, however conflicting evidence regarding its efficacy and associated costs have impacted its scale of clinical uptake. Additionally, there is no clear consensus regarding oxygenation, and hypo- or normothermia, in conjunction with MP, and its mechanisms of action are also debated. The primary aims of this article were to elucidate the benefits of MP preservation with and without oxygenation, and/or under normothermic conditions, when compared with CS prior to deceased donor kidney transplantation.

METHODS

Clinical (observational studies and prospective trials) and animal (experimental) articles exploring the use of renal MP were assessed (EMBASE, Medline, and Cochrane databases). Meta-analyses were conducted for the comparisons between hypothermic MP (hypothermic machine perfusion [HMP]) and CS (human studies) and normothermic MP (warm (normothermic) perfusion [WP]) compared with CS or HMP (animal studies). The primary outcome was allograft function. Secondary outcomes included graft and patient survival, acute rejection and parameters of tubular, glomerular and endothelial function. Subgroup analyses were conducted in expanded criteria (ECD) and donation after circulatory (DCD) death donors.

RESULTS

A total of 101 studies (63 human and 38 animal) were included. There was a lower rate of delayed graft function in recipients with HMP donor grafts compared with CS kidneys (RR 0.77; 95% CI 0.69-0.87). Primary nonfunction (PNF) was reduced in ECD kidneys preserved by HMP (RR 0.28; 95% CI 0.09-0.89). Renal function in animal studies was significantly better in WP kidneys compared with both HMP (standardized mean difference [SMD] of peak creatinine 1.66; 95% CI 3.19 to 0.14) and CS (SMD of peak creatinine 1.72; 95% CI 3.09 to 0.34). MP improves renal preservation through the better maintenance of tubular, glomerular, and endothelial function and integrity.

CONCLUSIONS

HMP improves short-term outcomes after renal transplantation, with a less clear effect in the longer-term. There is considerable room for modification of the process to assess whether superior outcomes can be achieved through oxygenation, perfusion fluid manipulation, and alteration of perfusion temperature. In particular, correlative experimental (animal) data provides strong support for more clinical trials investigating normothermic MP.

Normothermic machine perfusion of the kidney: better conditioning and repair?

Kidney transplantation is limited by hypothermic preservation techniques. Prolonged periods of cold ischaemia increase the risk of early graft dysfunction and reduce long-term survival. To extend the boundaries of transplantation and utilize kidneys from more marginal donors, improved methods of preservation are required. Normothermic perfusion restores energy levels in the kidney allowing renal function to be restored ex vivo. This has several advantages: cold ischaemic injury can be avoided or minimized, the kidney can be maintained in a stable state allowing close observation and assessment of viability and lastly, it provides the ideal opportunity to add therapies to directly manipulate and improve the condition of the kidney. This review explores the experimental and clinical evidence for ex vivo normothermic perfusion in kidney transplantation and its role in conditioning and repair.

Oxygenated kidney preservation techniques

Improving preservation techniques to minimize injury is of particular importance in organs from marginal donors. Since the introduction of transplantation and routine use of hypothermic temperatures for kidney preservation, there has been much debate on whether it is necessary to add oxygen to support the low level of metabolism under these conditions. Supplementing the kidney with oxygen during hypothermic preservation is not common practice. However, there is evidence to support its application. Oxygen can be added by various techniques such as retrograde persufflation whereby filtered and humidified oxygen is bubbled through the vasculature; under hyperbaric conditions using specialized pressurized chambers; during hypothermic machine perfusion; with the addition of oxygen carriers; and under normothermic conditions. Evidence suggests that oxygenation is particularly beneficial in restoring cellular levels of adenosine triphosphate after kidneys have been subjected to warm or cold ischemic injury. However, under normal conditions, the benefits are less convincing, but the evidence is insufficient to draw any conclusions. This overview explores the ways in which oxygen can be administered during preservation in experimental and clinical models of kidney transplantation.

Normothermic kidney preservation

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Kidneys from marginal or donation after cardiac death (DCD) donors are particularly susceptible to injury during hypothermic preservation and may benefit from alternative methods of preservation. Normothermic preservation can be adapted to improve the quality of kidneys for transplantation by a variety of techniques.

RECENT FINDINGS

Extracorporeal membrane support to maintain circulation before cooling and organ retrieval has been used to improve the condition of DCD donor kidneys, with lower rates of delayed graft function (DGF) compared with standard retrieval conditions. Experimentally, normothermic perfusion has been used in conjunction with hypothermic techniques as a resuscitation technique to improve graft outcome. An ex-vivo porcine kidney model showed that energy levels could be replenished to improve tissue perfusion during reperfusion. This technique was translated into a porcine transplant model demonstrating that it was a feasible and safe method of preservation.

SUMMARY

Normothermic preservation techniques have the potential to be adapted into an improved method of retaining tissue viability compared with hypothermic techniques. Furthermore, they may be used as a device to enhance and assess the condition of the kidney which would be particularly beneficial for kidneys from DCD donors.