Characteristics of Long-Term Live-Donor Renal Allograft Survivors

Abstract

Background/Aims: Despite the high rate of rejection, allograft failure and patient mortality in the early years of renal allotransplantation, some patients have done-remarkably well. We report here on 62 renal transplant recipients out of 144 patients (43%) who had functioning grafts for more than 15 years (range 15–24 years). Materials: Demographic and follow-up data for patients fulfilling the criteria were reviewed. These patients include 43 males and 19 females, with a mean age at transplantation of 27.5 ± 6.6 years (range 9–43 years), and mean donor age of 30 ± 8.6 years. The donor source was 8 parents, 49 siblings and 5 unrelated. The main causes of end-stage renal disease were chronic pyelonephritis and chronic glomerulonephritis. Twenty-nine patients were treated with cyclosporine (CsA) while 33 patients were primarily immunosuppressed by steroids and azathioprine. Results: Acute rejection episodes occurred in 40 patients (64.3%), out of them 19 patients experienced two or more acute rejection episodes. Univariate analysis showed that recipient and donor age, HLA-DR matching, pre- and post-transplant hypertension, ATN, delayed diuresis and chronic allograft nephropathy are significant risk factors; while recipient age, delayed diuresis and post-transplant hypertension were still significant by multivariate analysis. Conclusions: We concluded that renal transplantation, even in its earliest years and despite the numerous complications, has provided 15 or more years of near-normal life to patients with end-stage renal disease. Certain characteristics of long-term renal allograft survivors include young donor/recipient pairs, good DR matching with less pre- and post-transplantation prevalence of hypertension.