Excellent results of transplantation in elderly recipients, together with regulatory requirements encourage continued consideration of this modality. The organ shortage compels the use of deceased-donor kidneys and may be a suboptimal therapy. However, the elderly patient may not tolerate the prolonged wait for an optimal organ. While individual comorbidities can be evaluated, patient selection requires the transplantation team to render a judgment based on the candidate's overall condition,

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... ch is best correlated with the ability to accomplish activities of daily living and to perform moderate exercise. Psychosocial considerations are complex in the elderly patient because of frequent dementia, absence of a sufficient support mechanism and the need for more resources than those required by younger patients. After transplantation, appropriate management of immunosuppression typically entails lower doses in elderly patients, a logical consequence of immunosenescence. Transplantation should not be considered an acceptable exercise in futility when the ability to offer this life-saving therapy to other patients will be adversely affected by doing so.