Charts of 60 patients who underwent RAKT were prospectively collected and compared to 60 matched patients who underwent OKT (out of total 293 during that period of time). All kidneys were harvested in the same fashion (laparoscopically) and grafted in the recipients’ abdominal cavities following a midline umbilical approach or Pfannenstiel approach.
Certain differences existed between the two cohorts. Patients of the RAKT group had higher body mass index, required less perioperative analgesia, had significantly longer rewarm ischemia time. No functional outcomes differences in terms of serum creatinine were found between both groups at 7 and 90 days postoperatively.
RAKT looks like a promising technique as this study showed advantages over OKT by decreasing wound morbidity yet achieving similar functional outcomes on the short run. Although encouraging, long term follow-up of a larger number of patients is still needed to confirm such findings.
Presented by: Anant Kumar, Max Healthcare, Dept. of Urology, Uro-Oncology, Robotics, and Renal Transplantation, New Delhi, India
Written by: Farouk M. El-Khatib, MD, Clinical Research Fellow., UC Irvine Health, Department of Urology, at the 34th European Association of Urology (EAU 2019) #EAU19 conference in Barcelona, Spain, March 15-19, 2019.