Prognostic indexes in kidney procurement and allocation

The quality of organs from deceased donors in kidney transplant (KT) represents one the most crucial factors affecting kidney graft survival. Older donors and donors with unfavorable clinical characteristics are being used more frequently in the renal transplant field. Thus, new allocation system policies are needed to match donor kidneys with recipients based on similar expected survival. Allocation systems based upon a recipient risk score and deceased-donor score may improve outcomes after KT. The aim of this review is to assess the contribution and utility of allocation scoring systems to predict and improve KT outcomes.