An emerging population: kidney transplant candidates who are placed on the waiting list after liver, heart, and lung transplantation.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: ESRD has an adverse impact on patients who have had previous nonrenal solid-organ transplants (NRTxs; liver, heart, lung) and may be referred for a kidney transplant (KTx).

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS: Using Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients data for all KTx candidates who had NRTx and were listed between 1995 and 2008, incidence of NRTx listings were compared with trends in KTx without NRTX. The efficacy of kidney transplantation relative to dialysis was measured in time-dependent Cox models that incorporated candidates with the applicable previous organ transplant as a reference group.

RESULTS: Overall, 4904 NRTx candidates were listed during the study period, growing from <1% of candidates before 1995 to 3.3% in 2008. A total of 38% of NRTx candidates were listed preemptively versus 21% of other candidates. NRTx candidates had dramatically shorter half-lives (≤ 4 years) after listing compared with previous KTx recipients (9.2 years). KTx demonstrated a survival advantage for each type of NRTx candidate relative to maintenance dialysis. Listing for expanded-criteria donor kidneys averaged 47% and did not differ significantly by previous transplant category.

CONCLUSIONS: KTx candidates who are placed on the waiting list after NRTx constitute a significant and more rapidly growing cohort compared with the general KTx candidate population. NRTx candidates are frequently listed preemptively but have rapid decline once placed on the waiting list. Targeted use of expanded-criteria donor and living-donor transplants in the NRTx population may be particularly important given their high mortality on the waiting list.