Kidney exchange launched between the U.S. and Italy

 Here's the announcement from Italy (in Italian), on the site of the Centro Nazionale Trapianti, the National Transplant Center: 

Al via programma di trapianti incrociati di rene tra Italia e Usa, firmato l'accordo, 

Google translate: "The pilot phase will cover the first three cases and will be limited to  three hospitals : for Italy, the kidney transplant center of the  Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome will participate, directed by Professor Franco Citterio, present at the signing of the agreement, while for the USA the  University of Toledo Medical Center  and the hospitals of  Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia will be involved . Once the operational and management experimentation has been completed, the program will be re-evaluated for a possible consolidation of the protocol and for the progressive expansion to other living kidney transplant centers of the Italian network. 

"The one with the United States is  the second international exchange protocol  activated by our country: since 2018 an agreement has been in force involving France, Portugal and  Spain  and which has resulted in three cross transplants with the latter nation. From 2015 to date, the Italian national crossover kidney transplant program has allowed  77 interventions to be carried out . Overall, 2,043 kidney transplants were performed in Italy in 2021, of which 341 from living donors: of these, 5 were carried out through an exchange between donor and recipient pairs. "

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Here's the announcement from the Alliance for Paired Kidney donation, the U.S. partner (in English):

PILOT KIDNEY EXCHANGE TRANSPLANT PROGRAM LAUNCHED BETWEEN US, ITALY

""The goal of the memorandum of understanding, which was signed at the Ministry of Health in Rome, is to provide for the possible treatment of thousands of patients awaiting kidney transplants in both the U.S. and Italy. The agreement was signed on behalf of CNT by its director, Massimo Cardillo, and by Michael A. Rees, MD, PhD, the CEO of APKD and the surgical director of kidney transplantation at the University of Toledo Medical Center in Ohio.

"The new US-Italy program concerns kidney exchange transplantation, in which incompatible living donor and recipient pairs are matched with other incompatible pairs for kidney transplants. Thanks to the agreement between APKD and CNT, incompatible American and Italian donor-recipient pairs will be able to exchange with each other based on a shared algorithm that will verify the level of compatibility between those on the countries’ transplant waiting lists. In this way, patients with kidney failure, who also have an incompatible volunteer donor, will have a greater chance of receiving the transplant they need.

"In addition to the technical-operational aspects – such as the requirements of the participating hospitals, matching algorithm and overall governance of the transplant process – the agreement provides that the costs related to the transplant procedure are borne by the U.S. insurance coverage for the U.S. recipient and the Italian donor, while the Italian National Health Service will cover the expenses for the Italian recipient and the American donor. Transplant surgeries will take place in the country where the recipient is located.

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A critical role was played by Dr. Ignacio Marino, the transplant surgeon who took time off to be the mayor of Rome and is now at Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia.

His facebook post yesterday describes some details of the proceedings (first in Italian and then in English:

"The agreement was signed by the Italian National Transplant Centre (NTC), represented by director Massimo Cardillo, and the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation (APKD), a non-profit organisation that runs one of the largest living kidney exchange programmes in the United States, represented by its CEO, Professor Michael A. Rees, MD PhD, director of the Kidney Transplant Centre at the University of Toledo Medical Center, Ohio. The signing of the protocol was attended by the Italian Deputy Minister for Health Pierpaolo Sileri, who has wholeheartedly supported this innovative project from the outlet."

Drs. Mike Rees and Ignazio Marino

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Update, October 3:

Here's an Italian news article from Sanita24 taking note of the agreement.

Trapianti di rene: attese più brevi grazie all'algoritmo del premio Nobel Alvin Roth  di Paolo Castiglia

G translate of first paragraph: "In no country in the world is there a sufficient number of donors to cover the transplant needs of all patients suffering from end-stage renal failure and who therefore have to resort to dialysis. To address this need, a memorandum of understanding was signed for the launch of an organ donation program in a “cross” mode between different continents, to offer a new possibility of treatment to patients on dialysis."

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Related earlier posts

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Ignazio Marino on global kidney exchange

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Jefferson University celebrates Dr. Ignazio Marino