With the increasing incidence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD), patients’ life span and life quality are significantly reduced. Kidney transplantation has gradually become the ideal method for treating ESRD, and the shortage of organ sources has become the main problem. In recent years, China has successfully realized the transformation of organ sources. Voluntary donation after the death of citizens has increased year by year, and the number of kidney transplantations has increased, which alleviates the organ shortage to a certain extent, but compared with the past, the increasing proportion of aged donors has also become an inevitable global problem. At the same time, due to the sudden and widespread distribution of voluntary donation, most donor kidneys have the problem of longer cold ischemic time (CIT). The probability of adverse events, such as delayed renal function recovery after transplantation, was also significantly increased. At present, there is little research on the effect of donor’s aging and long CIT on the prognosis of renal transplantation. This paper reviews the literature in recent years and explore this problem from 2 aspects: the elderly donor and the long CIT.