Impact of cardiovascular risk factors on the outcome of renal transplantation

Cardiovascular diseases are common in renal transplant recipients and renal insuf­ficiency has been shown to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Some studies have reported that cardiovascular risk factors may contribute to the outcome of renal transplantation. This study was performed to determine the impact of cardiovascular risk factors on the outcome of renal transplantation in Iranian subjects. This is a retrospective, observational study including patients of 20­85 years of age who had undergone renal transplantation. Parameters documented and analyzed included demographics, cardiovascular risk factors, past medical history, date of last transplan­tation, the outcome of transplant, last measured serum creatinine, cause of graft failure, rejection, and death. A total of 192 patients were analyzed including 152 in the case group (with identifiable cardiovascular risk factors) and 40 controls (transplant recipients without identifiable risk factors). The mean serum creatinine in the case and control groups were 1.33 ± 0.13 and 1.29 ± 0.36 mg/dL respectively (P= 0.493). Response to transplantation was categorized based on a report from the World Health Organization. Complete response to grafting occurred in the control group more than the case group (P= 0.009), while frequency of partial response to grafting was higher in the case group (0.008). A history of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) could significantly predict the outcome of grafting (P= 0.008) as could the occurrence of renal failure (P= 0.022). Results were consistently reproduced using multivariate cumulative log it model. Our study indicates that the measured cardiovascular risk factors do not significantly influence the outcome of renal transplantation.