Unfortunately, the only way to tell if a kidney transplant is going to work…is to transplant it and wait.
Most transplanted kidneys start to work immediately and help sustain transplant patients for 10-20 years. Transplants from deceased donors typically can function adequately for up to a decade (average 8-12 years) and those from living donors up to 20 years.
Roughly 25% of kidney transplants do not work immediately (this is termed ‘delayed graft function’ – DGF). DGF patients typically need aggressive medical management, including acute dialysis and fluid therapy, and longer hospitalizations while waiting for the transplanted kidney to ‘wake up’.
Predicting which patients were at risk for DGF before transplantation would be a significant and welcome improvement in kidney transplantation. RTI scientists and engineers, working with transplant surgeons and their team at Atrium Health – Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, may be on track to solving the DGF problem. A recently completed preliminary study (manuscript submitted for publication) of twenty-dight (28) kidney transplant patients found the following:
- Rametrix® Urine Molecular Fingerprinting (UMF)™ of urine samples from patients scheduled for a kidney transplant accurately predicted which patients might develop DGF before they received a transplant,
- Rametrix® UMF of urine samples collected from kidney transplant recipients over the first month after transplantation showed which patients with DGF responded to aggressive management and how long it took for DGF to resolve,
- Changes in Rametrix® UMF fingerprints were seen in patients with transplant-associated viremia (CMV, BK viruses) and chronic rejection.
Taken together, these observations show that Rametrix® UMF may be a valuable, point-of-care tool for managing kidney transplant patients and potentially improving outcomes.