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Kidney Week

Abstract: TH-PO804

Impact of Donor-Derived Cell-Free DNA Testing on Patient and Graft Outcomes

Session Information

Category: Transplantation

  • 2102 Transplantation: Clinical

Authors

  • Shuaib, Fawad, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
  • Castellanos, Ana L., University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
  • Paluri, Sravanthi, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
  • Schumacher, Lauren, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
  • Philippart, Olivia, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
  • Yau, Jesica, CareDx Inc, Brisbane, California, United States
  • Fattah, Hasan, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
Background

The objective of this study was to compare outcomes in cohorts of patients with and without donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA) testing.

Methods

This is a single center retrospective cohort study of kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) comparing a historical cohort of patients transplanted from 2015-2017 without dd-cfDNA testing and cohort of patients transplanted from 2019-2022 with dd-cfDNA testing. Outcomes included BPAR, DSAs, death censored graft loss, death, and renal function at 1 year.

Results

408 KTRs were included in the analysis. There were significantly more patients with DGF and DCD donor type in the dd-cfDNA cohort (Table 1). At 1-year post-transplant, there was no significant difference in DSAs (7.4% vs 8.3%; p=0.75) or BPAR (6.5% vs 7.8%, p=0.621) between the two groups. Statistical analysis on death-censored graft loss and patient death was not performed due to few KTRs reaching these outcomes (Table 2). Serum creatinine and eGFR at 1-year was not significantly different between the two cohorts, whereas there was significantly less proteinuria in the historical cohort (7.5% vs 13.6%, p=0.044). When stratifying the dd-cfDNA cohort by results > 0.5% vs <0.5% at 3 months and 1 year, there was significantly more BPAR seen in the > 0.5% dd-cfDNA cohort.

Conclusion

There was no difference in most outcomes between the two cohorts, except for more proteinuria in the dd-cfDNA cohort. This result is limited due to higher proportion of KTRs with DGF and DCD donor type in the dd-cfDNA cohort. Assessing effectiveness of dd-cfDNA monitoring was limited to 1 year follow up period in our study. The impact of dd-cfDNA testing frequency on patient-centered outcomes remains unknown. Further studies are needed to study the ideal testing frequency impact on such outcomes.