Kidney preservation for transportation. IV. Eight-thousand-mile international air transport

Eleven do kidneys were removed in Los Angeles, preserved, and air-freighted in small insulated boxes to London, Tel Aviv and Sydney. They were allografted into bilaterally nephrectomized dogs after storage periods of 14 to 23 hours. Except in the case of one technical failure, the rise in serum creatinine in the recipients was minimal, reaching on the average 2.2 ± SD 0.5 mg/100 ml. This simple method of preservation, involving flushing with a new perfusate and storage in ice, could provide a solution to the problem of transporting cadaver kidneys to histocompatible recipients. Survival of two out of three kidneys stored for 48 hours was also obtained.