Introduction: On 24th of February 2022 war in Ukraine has broken out and many refugees escaped to Poland. Since the beginning of the war, around 80% of new immigrants are Ukrainian citizens. Polish government, based on law from 12th of March 2022, provided them easy access for national health system (NFZ), what led to enrolling Ukrainians to the Polish national waiting-list (KLO) as well for kidney living-donation (LKD) with subsequent transplantation (LDKTx), kidney donation from brain-death donors (DBD) and kidney transplantation (KTx). We evaluated impact of Ukrainian’s migration on kidney donation and transplantation in Poland.
Methods: We analysed data provided from National Transplant Registries administrated by Polish Transplant Coordinating Center POLTRANSPLANT within two years of war (period A - 24th of February 2022-24th of February 2024). Period A was compared with period B (1st of January 2018-31st of December 2019) to avoid impact of COVID-19 pandemia which resulted global fall in organ transplantation. Chi2 was used for statistical analysis. P-value <.05 was set up as statistical significant.
Results: In period A, 57 Ukrainians out of 90 foreigners were enrolled for KTx to KLO. 48 potential Ukrainian donors were identified and 39 of them became kidney DBD out of 990 kidney donors. During period A, Ukrainian donors represented 80% (39 out of 49) of the foreigners. 24 Ukrainians underwent KTx out of 1740 kidney transplantations. 3 pairs of Ukrainian refugees underwent LKD and LDKTx out of 182 LKD. In period B, none of 92 LKD and LKTx in period B were from Ukraine. 13 potential Ukrainian donors were identified and 7 became donors out of 993 DBD donors. 9 underwent KTx out of 1886 all kidney transplants in the period B. We observed significant improvement of donation and transplantation from DBD in period A compared to period B. Although we observed LDKTx in period A from Ukrainian refugees compared to period B, the difference was not significant.
Conclusions: During war, we observed substantial grow of enrollment to KLO, kidney donation from LKD as well as DBD donation, and KTx among Ukrainian citizens and immigrants. Although, they represent small percentage of total number of donors and recipients, however portray majority of the foreigners in Polish transplant system.