Intensive Insulin Therapy in Deceased Donors

Every year in the US, there is a shortage of many thousands of kidneys needed for transplant. Furthermore, kidneys that are available and are transplanted often exhibit delayed or slow graft function (DGF and SGF, respectively), which lowers quality of life for patients and their families and requires significant additional medical care. These needs result in significant but preventable human suffering and health care spending. To address these needs, the investigators' project will test the use of intensive insulin therapy (IIT) in donors after neurological determination of death (DNDDs) as an intervention that will decrease acute kidney injury and improve renal function at the time of organ recovery. This should translate into a decreased incidence of DGF and SFG in recipients receiving organs from the IIT group. The investigators also expect to find a trend toward an increase in the number of organs available for transplant due to better organ protection in the DNDD. Taken together, these data can provide the requisite justification for a larger study that can be powered to evaluate the effect of IIT on increasing the number of kidneys available for transplantation. There is evidence that brain death often leads to hyperglycemia that may negatively impacts the organs of DNDDs. These observations led us to conduct a retrospective study, in which the investigators found that hyperglycemia in DNDDs is indeed associated with decreased terminal renal function. Because it has been reported that intensive insulin therapy (ITT) is renoprotective in the ICU more than conventional insulin therapy (CIT), the investigators propose to evaluate the use of IIT on DNDDs to: (1) improve organ function, (2) reduce DGF in recipients, and (3) possibly increase the number of kidney available for transplant. Methods: This is a prospective observational study to document the impact of IIT on acute kidney injury in DNDDS and on allograft function in recipients. DNDDs will be divided i