Deceased donor kidney procurement: Systematic review of the surgical technique

Abstract

Introduction: Kidney procurement procedure must be carried out following a standardized technique in order to optimize kidney grafts for their subsequent implantation.

Objectives: Review of the available literature on kidney procurement procedure.

Material and methods: Narrative review of the available evidence on deceased donor kidney procurement technique after a search of relevant manuscripts indexed in PubMed, EMBASE and Scielo written in English and Spanish.

Results: Deceased donor kidney procurement can be divided into two groups, donation after brain death (DBD) and donation after circulatory death (DCD). Kidney procurement in DBD frequently includes other chest and/or abdominal organs, requiring multidisciplinary surgical coordination. During the harvesting procedure, the renal vascular pedicle must remain intact for subsequent implantation and reduced ischemia time.

Conclusions: Adequate execution and perfect knowledge of the technique for surgical removal and anatomy reduces the rate of graft losses associated to inadequate harvesting techniques.

Keywords: Deceased donor; Donante cadáver; Extracción; Kidney transplant; Procurement; Trasplante renal.