DCD kidney transplantation in Italy: Past, present, and future

Abstract

The disproportion between the number of patients on the kidney transplant waiting list and the actual donors pool represents a primary issue for the international Transplant community. The development of donation after circulatory death (DCD) programs has been associated with a remarkable increase in organs procurement and transplants activities across the globe. However, effective DCD donation and transplantation require the resolution of several legal, ethical, deontological, logistical, and technical issues. In Italy, the major obstacle to this very specific type of dation was represented by the 20-minute no-touch period for the declaration of death by cardio-circulatory criteria established by the Italian legislation. Following the encouraging results obtained with the use of in situ Normothermic Regional Perfusion in the setting of a single-center exploratory trial performed between 2008 and 2013 (Alba project), the Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica and the Centro Nazionale Trapianti eventually managed to start a national-scale controlled and uncontrolled DCD program. We herein describe the Italian DCD KT program with a special focus on the most crucial and peculiar aspects of the national organ donation and allocation process.