Effect of pre and post-transplant body mass index on pediatric kidney transplant outcomes

INTRODUCTION: Kidney transplantation (KT) has been established as an efficient treatment of end stage renal disease (ESRD) with the advantage of allowing the patient to live a nearly healthy life. We aimed to determine whether pre-transplant body mass index (BMI) affects renal allograft function and survival in pediatric KT recipients. METHODS: cross sectional cohort study included 50 post KT recipients (more than 3 years) with an age range of 10 to 15 years, regularly following at the Kidney Transplantation Outpatient Clinic, Cairo University Children’s Hospital, were subjected to a detailed history and physical examination, laboratory investigation in the form of fasting blood glucose (FBG),oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), lipid profile, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and microalbuminuria. RESULTS: Pre- post- kidney transplant BMI has significant positive correlation with graft rejection episodes, HbA1c, FBG, BMI post-KT, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein (p < 0.01). There was a statistically significant negative correlation between the mean difference of BMI (post – pre) and graft survival in years (p = 0.036). Obese patients displayed lower survival compared with non-obese subjects at 5 years, but this was statistically not significant (p-value = 0.165). CONCLUSION: obesity is an independent risk factor for graft loss and patient death in kidney transplantation. Careful patient selection with pre-transplantation weight reduction is mandatory to reduce the rate of early post-transplantation complications and to improve long-term outcomes.