Various Techniques and Outcomes of Arterial Anastomosis in Live Renal Transplant: An Institutional Experience

Introduction Renal transplantation with multiple arteries is associated with a major index of surgical complications. Relevant papers and meta-analyses have shown relatively more vascular and urological complications in transplant of donor kidneys with multiple arteries. In live donor grafts due to the unavailability of a carrel patch, several techniques for bench and in situ reconstruction have been described in order to reduce the incidence of these vascular complications. In this study, the short and long-term results of living donor kidney transplants with multiple renal arteries (MRAs) versus single renal artery (SRA) were compared retrospectively. Methods This is a retrospective study done on patients who received a living donor kidney between January 2012 and January 2018 at the Institute of Urology, Madras Medical College, Chennai. We have excluded deceased donor kidney transplants and ABO-incompatible cases done in the same time period. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee (Approval No: IES-MMC-008) and performed in accordance with the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki. Open live donor nephrectomy was performed through an extra-peritoneal flank incision in all cases. In the SRA group, the renal artery was anastomosed end to end to the Internal iliac artery, while the renal vein was anastomosed to the external iliac vein in the end to side fashion. Urinary tract reconstruction was accomplished by the Gregoir technique in both groups. We looked at recipient complications, baseline and postoperative serum creatinine, total ischemia time, mean operating time, and short- and long-term graft and patient survival as postoperative outcomes. Results In a six-year period (2012-2018) at our institute, 256 living donor transplantations were performed; 36 (14%) kidneys had two or more renal arteries which were anastomosed using various techniques. Cold ischemia time was relatively longer in the MRA group (45 mins vs 28 mins in the SRA group) (p-value <0.05). while warm ischemia time was comparable in both groups (2.5 vs 2.9 mins) serum creatinine was comparable in both groups at the 30th postoperative day (1.4 in SRA group vs 1.2 in MRA group) (p-value >0.05). Incidence of surgical complications in SRA and MRA groups was: vascular - 3.6% and 2.7%; urological - 3.2% and 2.7%; the incidence of lymphocele was 4.5% and 5.5% and delayed graft function 4.5% and 5.5% respectively. Conclusion Multiple renal arteries are no longer a relative contraindication with advanced surgical techniques. in renal grafts with multiple arteries, all techniques of vessel anastomosis are comparable in terms of post-surgical complications.