Quantifying the benefit of early living-donor renal transplantation with a simulation model of the Dutch renal replacement therapy population

Background. Early living-donor transplantation improves patient- and graft-survival compared with possible cadaveric renal transplantation (RTx), but the magnitude of the survival gain is unknown. For patients starting renal replacement therapy (RRT), we aimed to quantify the survival benefit of early living-donor transplantation compared with dialysis and possible cadaveric transplantation and to estimate the population benefit from increasing the early transplantation rate. Methods. We used a decision-analytic computer-simulation model, with a lifetime time horizon, simulating patients start... Mehr ...