Comparison of recipient outcomes following transplant from local versus imported pancreas donors

The shortage of deceased donor organs for solid organ transplantation continues to be an ongoing dilemma. One approach to increase the number of pancreas transplants is to share organs between procurement regions. To assess for the effects of organ importation, we reviewed the outcomes of 1014 patients undergoing deceased donor pancreas transplant at a single center. We performed univariate and multivariate analyses of the association of donor, recipient and surgical characteristics with patient outcomes. Organ importation had no effect on graft or recipient survival for recipients of solitary pancreas transplants. Similarly, there was no effect on technical failure rate, graft survival or long-term patient survival for simultaneous kidney-pancreas (SPK) recipients. In contrast, there was a significant and independent increased risk of death in the first year in SPK recipients of imported organs. SPK recipients had longer hospitalizations and increased hospital costs. This increased medical complexity may make these patients more susceptible to short-term complications resulting from the longer preservation times of import transplants. These findings support the continued use of organ sharing to reduce transplant wait times but highlight the importance of strategies to reduce organ preservation times.