Association of Nephrectomy of the Failed Renal Allograft With Outcome of the Future Transplant: A Systematic Review.

Kidney allograft failure is a significant complication in kidney transplant recipients, and the surgical decision to perform allograft nephrectomy poses a strong dilemma because it is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. There is a debate over the effect of allograft nephrectomy on the development of allosensitization and the impact on potential retransplantation. Moreover, the use of immunosuppression may contribute to antibody allosensitization as allograft nephrectomy and immunosuppression act jointly and interdependently toward antibody formation. Because more and more patients with kidney allograft failure are entering wait lists for repeat transplant procedures, a review of available evidence on the field is required. Here, we performed a literature search using multiple medical databases to identify relevant studies that assessed the effects of allograft nephrectomy on important retransplant endpoints such as allograft and patient survival; furthermore, secondary outcomes such as alloantibody sensitization were also evaluated. A total of 15 studies were identified; all were retrospective, single-center studies. The rate of allograft nephrectomy in patients with retransplant varied widely (from 20% to 80%). The average allograft nephrectomy rate in included studies was 43% (allograft nephrectomy number/number of repeat transplantations: 2351/5431). Most studies did not observe an allograft survival benefit after retransplant for patients with allograft nephrectomy with the exception of 4 studies that found worse allograft survival after allograft nephrectomy. Interestingly, 1 study found that, in the patient subgroup with early kidney allograft failure (<12 months posttransplant), allograft nephrectomy may be associated with better allograft survival. Available data suggested that allograft nephrectomy may be associated with a higher risk of increasing anti-HLA antibody levels. The quality of the included studies suffered from nonrandomized design, potential confounding, and small sample size. To conclude, further randomized controlled trials are required to delineate the role of allograft nephrectomy on retransplant outcomes.