Risk factors for renal allograft survival in patients receiving cyclosporine immunosuppression.
OBJECTIVE
Although cyclosporine (CsA) has been widely used in renal transplantation for more than 10 years, no large series of renal transplant patients has been studied in southern Taiwan. The purpose of this retrospective cohort study was to investigate the risk factors for graft survival in renal transplant recipients.


METHODS
From August 1987 to January 1998, 101 primary cadaveric renal transplantations were performed. The minimum follow-up period was 1 year. CsA and prednisolone were initially used as immunosuppressive agents in all patients. Use of lower doses of CsA to reduce CsA trough level (50-99 ng/mL) in hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive recipients was attempted at 6 months after transplantation.


RESULTS
Graft actuarial survival rates at 1, 5, and 10 years posttransplantation were 89%, 75%, and 57%, respectively. Acute rejection and increased recipient age were found to be significant risk factors (p < 0.05) affecting graft survival, with hazard ratios of 5.20 and 1.74, respectively, by multivariate analysis using a Cox proportional hazards model. Hepatitis B and/or hepatitis C infection had no influence on graft survival.


CONCLUSIONS
In this series of cadaveric renal allograft patients, the risk factors affecting allograft survival were acute rejection and recipient age.
Department of Surgery, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung Hsien, Taiwan.
H H
HH
Hsieh
Y S
YS
Chien
K T
KT
Hsu
H M
HM
Chung
H F
HF
Huang
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016572:Cyclosporine / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006085:Graft Survival; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing; D006801:Humans; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous
D016572:Cyclosporine