Khamash, Hasan

Donation after circulatory death (DCD) liver transplants (LTs) are associated with increased risk of post-LT acute kidney injury (AKI). This retrospective study aimed to examine the effect of continuous normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) on the incidence and stage of AKI in DCD LT. The incidence of AKI within 48 hours was compared between 507 NMP-DCD and 472 static cold storage (SCS)-DCD LT transplanted between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2024. AKI developed in 337 (34%) patients. On univariate analysis, AKI rate was lower in NMP-DCD compared with SCS-DCD (28% vs. 41%, p <0.001). Stages 2 and 3 AKI at 48 hours and renal replacement therapy (RRT) within the first 3 weeks were also lower in NMP-DCD compared with SCS-DCD ( p <0.001). After adjusting for multiple recipient, donor, and intraoperative factors using multivariate logistic regression, NMP-DCD was independently associated with a 37% lower odds of AKI (aOR: 0.63, CI: 0.46–0.85, p =0.003) and 55% lower odds of stages 2 and 3 AKI (aOR: 0.45, CI: 0.29–0.69, p <0.001) compared with SCS-DCD. To mitigate for the era effect and other unmeasured confounders, an inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) analysis was performed using a propensity score model with average treatment effect (ATE). After weighting for multiple factors, NMP-DCD was associated with lower odds of AKI at 48 hours (OR: 0.65, CI: 0.53–0.81, p =0.001), stages 2 and 3 AKI at 48 hours (OR: 0.60, CI: 0.42–0.85, p =0.02), and RRT at day 7 (OR: 0.31, CI: 0.13–0.65, p =0.003) compared with SCS-DCD. In conclusion, compared with SCS-DCD, NMP-DCD was independently associated with lower odds of AKI at 48 hours, of stages 2 and 3 AKI at 48 hours from LT, and of RRT requirement at day 7 from LT, an effect that extended for the first 3 post-LT weeks.