Analysis of BK virus infection in kidney transplant recipients

Abstract

Objective: To compare the infection of BK virus in the recipients of living donor(LD) kidney transplant and deceased donor(DD) kidney transplant. Methods: A total of 911 recipients who underwent kidney transplantation in the Organ Transplantation Research Institute of the 8th Medical Center of the People's Liberation Army General Hospital from January 2015 to August 2019 were enrolled in this study. The DNA copies of BK virus in urine and peripheral blood of kidney transplant recipients were detected by real-time quantitative PCR. The patients were divided into LD group (n=255) and DD group (n=656). BK virus infection in recipients with DD kidney transplant were compared with that in recipients of LD kidney transplant. Results: The BK virus positive rate in the urine of all subjects was 13.06%(119/911), and that in blood was 2.96% (27/911). The positive rate of BK virus in urine after kidney transplantation was significantly higher than that in blood(P<0.000 1). The positive rate in urine was 9.02% (23/255) in LD group, which was significantly lower than that of 14.63% (96/656) in DD group in the same period (χ(2)=5.097, P=0.012); The positive rate of BK virus infection in relatives group was 0.78% (2/255), which was significantly lower than that of 3.81% (25/656) in DD group (χ(2)=5.849, P=0.007). Conclusions: There was a significant difference in the infection rate of BK virus between the LD and DD group. The incidence of BK virus infection in kidney transplant recipients from DD was higher than that of from LD kidney transplant recipients.