The influence of clinical, environmental, and socioeconomic factors on five-year patient survival after kidney transplantation

INTRODUCTION: The risk of death after kidney transplant is associated with the age of the recipient, presence of comorbidities, socioeconomic status, local environmental characteristics and access to health care. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the causes and risk factors associated with death during the first 5 years after kidney transplantation. METHODS: This was a single-center, retrospective, matched case-control study. RESULTS: Using a consecutive cohort of 1,873 kidney transplant recipients from January 1(st) 2007 to December 31(st) 2009, there were 162 deaths (case group), corresponding to 5-year patient survival of 91.4%. Of these deaths, 25% occurred during the first 3 months after transplant. The most prevalent cause of death was infectious (53%) followed by cardiovascular (24%). Risk factors associated with death were history of diabetes, dialysis type and time, unemployment, delayed graft function, number of visits to center, number of hospitalizations, and duration of hospital stay. After multivariate analysis, only time on dialysis, number of visits to center, and days in hospital were still associated with death. Patients who died had a non-significant higher number of treated acute rejection episodes (38% vs. 29%, p = 0.078), higher mean number of adverse events per patient (5.1 ± 3.8 vs. 3.8 ± 2.9, p = 0.194), and lower mean eGFR at 3 months (50.8 ± 25.1 vs. 56.7 ± 20.7, p = 0.137) and 48 months (45.9 ± 23.8 vs. 58.5 ± 20.2, p = 0.368). CONCLUSION: This analysis confirmed that in this population, infection is the leading cause of mortality over the first 5 years after kidney transplantation. Several demographic and socioeconomic risk factors were associated with death, most of which are not readily modifiable.