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WEDNESDAY, April 14 (HealthDayNews) -- People who receive kidneys from donors aged 55 and older seem to have good outcomes, says a Brown Medical School study in the April issue of the Archives of Surgery.

The study notes the percentage of deceased kidney donors aged 55 and older in the United States has increased during the last decade. That's a result of lower death rates in people aged 18 to 35 and increased acceptance of kidneys from older, deceased donors.

Researchers studied data about 324 people who received a kidney from an adult donor aged 18 or older. The recipients were divided into groups based on donor status (living or deceased) and donor age (54 years or younger, or 55 years and older).

People who received kidneys from donors 55 years or older were older themselves compared to those who received kidneys from younger donors (53.6 years old vs. 43.6 years old).

The study found that seven transplants failed out of 55 transplants from donors 55 and older (12.7 percent) compared with 41 failures among 269 transplants from younger donors (15.2 percent). Kidney function following transplant was acceptable in all groups but was better in people who received kidneys from younger donors.

The survival of transplanted kidneys from younger and older donors did not differ at one, two and three years after transplant.

"Older donor kidneys provide good allograft function in most recipients. After proper evaluation, kidneys from older deceased or living donors are appropriate for selected candidates, including older patients awaiting transplantation and those with limited life expectancy based on their severity of illness," the study authors concluded.

More information

The American Diabetes Association has more about kidney transplantation.

(SOURCE: JAMA/Archives Journals, news release, April 12, 2004)

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