Preemptive Kidney Transplants Add No Benefit, Study Says

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 4, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Folks who might need a kidney transplant in the future shouldn’t rush to get one, a new study says.

Patients gain no benefit from getting a donated kidney before their own kidneys deteriorate to the point that they require dialysis, researchers reported recently in the journal Transplantation Proceedings.

“Our study shows that waiting until you really need a transplant is when you should get one,” Dr. Abhishek Kumar, medical director of the Living Kidney Donor Program at Yale School of Medicine, said in a news release. “Otherwise, you’re losing that time on your own kidney.” 

Dialysis puts stress on the body and weakens the immune system, even as it prolongs life by helping failing kidneys filter waste products from a person’s bloodstream.

Because of this, it’s commonly believed that people with end-stage kidney disease would be better off if they receive a kidney transplant before they need dialysis, researchers said.

“If you receive an organ from the deceased donor list, you don’t have control over when you will get the organ,” Kumar said. “On the other hand, if there is a living donor, and you have more control over timing, the question is, when is it most beneficial to get the transplant?”

To help answer that question, researchers analyzed outcomes for more than 288,000 kidney transplants that occurred between 2000 and 2020, including more than 52,000 surgeries that occurred before a person required dialysis.

There wound up being no difference in a person’s risk of death whether they received their kidney earlier or later, results show.

Dialysis up to six months did not negatively impact a person’s long-term health, if a transplant was performed within that period, researchers found.

“Sometimes I tell patients the best time to get a transplant is the day you need dialysis,” Kumar said.

However, he added that the best time for dialysis and transplant is different for every person and difficult to predict.

“We should always avoid dialysis if we can, but performing a transplant early is not the solution,” Kumar said.

More information

The National Kidney Foundation has more about dialysis.

SOURCE: Yale School of Medicine, news release, May 23, 2025

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