[Association between controlled circulatory death donor waitlisting and waiting time before kidney transplantation in a French center]

Introduction: Transplantation from controlled donation after circulatory determination of death (cDCD) is a new practice in France. An additional specific consent is required for registration on the cDCD waiting list. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of cDCD acceptance on the waiting time for the registered patients on the transplant list.

Methods: Patients registered on the kidney transplant waiting list for a Death Brain Donor (DBD) kidney transplant between 2018 and 2019 in our center were included. Patients who were candidates for a second kidney transplant or who had already received an organ transplant were not included. The cDCD waiting list registration was authorized by a signed consent of the patient on the day of DBD registration. The primary endpoint was time to renal transplantation.

Results: Of the 315 patients eligible for a cDCD graft at transplant list registration, 152 were registered on the cDCD waiting list. Time to transplantation for these patients was multiplied by 1.42 (95%CI 1.07-1.87) compared with patients not registered for a cDCD graft. The time to transplantation was 2.59 months (95%CI 0.49-4.69) shorter for a 2-year follow-up for cDCD-listed patients. This represents one additional transplant at 6 months for every seven registered patients.

Conclusion: cDCD waiting list registration reduced the time to kidney transplantation in France.