title: The relationship between donor age and cadaveric renal allograft survival is modified by the recipient's blood pressure.
abstract: Increasing donor age correlates with reduced renal allograft survival. In this study we analyzed variables that may modify this relationship. The study included 1285 cadaveric kidney allograft recipients followed for 7.2 + 4.5 years. By Cox, increasing donor age beyond 30 years was associated with significant increases in the hazard ratio for graft loss [age 31-46, hazard ratio (HR) = 1.4, p = 0.02; 46-60, HR = 1.55, p = 0.008; > 60, HR = 1.68, p = 0.03]. Increasing donor age was significantly associated with: older and heavier recipients; higher creatinine and blood pressure (BP) 6 months post-transplant; and lower total cyclosporine dose during the first year. Of interest, the 6-month serum creatinine and the BP level modified significantly the relationship between age and survival. Thus, increasing donor age was significantly related to reduced graft survival only in patients with a 6-month creatinine < 2 mg/dL. Furthermore, donor age related significantly to graft survival only among patients with higher BP levels 6 month post transplant. It is concluded that increasing donor age is associated with reduced cadaveric graft survival, but that relationship is significantly modified by graft function and BP. These data suggest that poorly functioning kidneys have reduced survival irrespective of age. Furthermore, elevated BP levels may have a particularly negative effect on the survival of older grafts.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Internal Medicine, Pathology, Surgery and Center for Biostatistics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. Cosio.Fernando@mayo.edu
authors.forename: Fernando G
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Cosio
authors.forename: Mitchell
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Henry
authors.forename: Todd E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Pesavento
authors.forename: Ronald M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Ferguson
authors.forename: Sunny
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Stanley
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lemeshow
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001794:Blood Pressure; D002102:Cadaver; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D013997:Time Factors; D014019:Tissue Donors