MedCity morning read

More people are volunteering to give up a kidney for someone who needs it.

Prediction tables developed by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic could help doctors and patients pick the best kidney donors.

The tables, called nomograms, were developed by Dr. David Goldfarb and a team of researchers at the Clinic’s Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute. Goldfarb, who is surgical director of the kidney transplantation program, and his team analyzed data from the United Network for Organ Donor Sharing to determine kidney function in transplant patients after one year and after five years.

The researchers used that data — such as the patient’s age and gender, and the donor’s size in relation to the patient — to figure out which characteristics have the most impact on the success of kidney transplants. The researchers translated the data as nomograms that can be used to counsel kidney recipients about choosing the live donors who could be the best matches.

“When we’re better able to match donors and recipients prior to transplant, we can optimize outcomes and therefore reduce the likelihood that a patient will need another kidney in the next five years,” Goldfarb said in a written statement.

“With more than 70,000 people currently waiting for a kidney, we hope that this will ensure all available living donor kidneys are used in their ideal recipients with no kidneys being wasted unnecessarily,” he said.

Kidney transplants have emerged as the best treatment for end-stage renal disease. About 5 percent of kidney transplants from living donors fail in the first year, and up to 30 percent fail within five years.

The nomograms developed by Cleveland Clinic researchers could give transplant patients a more accurate prognosis. The models need to be validated by more researchers before they are used to help patients, Goldfarb said.

The study will be published in the March 2009 edition of The Journal of Urology.

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