Utility in Treating Kidney Failure in End-Stage Liver Disease With Simultaneous Liver-Kidney Transplantation

Background Simultaneous liver-kidney (SLK) transplantation plays an important role in treating kidney failure in patients with end-stage liver disease. It used 5% of deceased donor kidney transplanted in 2015. We evaluated the utility, defined as posttransplant kidney allograft lifespan, of this practice. Methods Using data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, we compared outcomes for all SLK transplants between January 1, 1995, and December 3, 2014, to their donor-matched kidney used in kidney-alone (Ki) or simultaneous pancreas kidney (SPK) transplants. Primary outcome was kidney allograft lifespan, defined as the time free from death or allograft failure. Secondary outcomes included death and death-censored allograft failure. We adjusted all analyses for donor, transplant, and recipient factors. Results The adjusted 10-year mean kidney allograft lifespan was higher in Ki/SPK compared with SLK transplants by 0.99 years in the Model for End-stage Liver Disease era and 1.71 years in the pre-Model for End-stage Liver Disease era. Death was higher in SLK recipients relative to Ki/SPK recipients: 10-year cumulative incidences 0.36 (95% confident interval 0.33-0.38) versus 0.19 (95% confident interval 0.17-0.21). Conclusions SLK transplantation exemplifies the trade-off between the principles of utility and medical urgency. With each SLK transplantation, about 1 year of allograft lifespan is traded so that sicker patients, that is, SLK transplant recipients, are afforded access to the organ. These data provide a basis against which benefits derived from urgency-based allocation can be measured.