Chronic allograft nephropathy uniformly affects recipients of cadaveric, nonidentical living-related, and living-unrelated grafts.
BACKGROUND
Chronic allograft nephropathy (CAN) remains a major barrier to long-term allograft survival. The authors retrospectively compared the development of CAN in recipients of cadaveric (CAD), living-related donor (LRD), and living-unrelated donor (LURD) transplants at their center.


METHODS
The authors retrospectively examined the impact of various factors on the incidence of CAN using univariate and multivariate proportional hazards analysis in a single-center kidney transplant population.


RESULTS
Between 1 January 1990 and 31 May 2000, 2,140 kidney-alone transplants were performed at the authors' center. The overall 5-year incidence of biopsy-proven CAN was 12.2% (n=203). Risk factors for CAN included the number of transplants (P=0.0001), acute rejection (P=0.0001), panel reactive antibody (P=0.0001), discharge creatinine (P=0.0001), 1-year creatinine (P=0.0015), delayed graft function (P=0.007), total human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B and -DR mismatches (P=0.0005), recipient age (P=0.003), black donor race (P=0.001), black recipient race (0.0457), donor age (P=0.0053), cold storage time (P=0.019), and cytomegalovirus infections (P=0.002). Interestingly, although the LRD HLA-identical recipients had a significantly lower incidence of CAN (P=0.0015), the incidence of CAN in CAD and HLA-nonidentical LRD recipients did not differ. Graft survival was significantly worse in CAD recipients compared with all other groups (P<0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
These results demonstrate the importance of immunologic and nonimmunologic factors on the development of CAN. The disparities in overall graft survival, despite the similarities in CAN rates, suggests that other factors, in addition to CAN, influence the increase in graft loss in CAD transplant recipients.
Krieger
Nancy R
NR
Department of Surgery, University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison, WI 53792-7375, USA.
Becker
Bryan N
BN
Heisey
Dennis M
DM
Voss
Barbara J
BJ
D'Alessandro
Anthony M
AM
Becker
Yolanda T
YT
Odorico
Jon S
JS
Kalayoglu
Munci
M
Pirsch
John D
JD
Sollinger
Hans W
HW
Knechtle
Stuart J
SJ
D000328:Adult; D001706:Biopsy; D002102:Cadaver; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000209:etiology; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D007668:Kidney / Q000473:pathology; D007674:Kidney Diseases / Q000150:complications / Q000209:etiology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000401:mortality; D019520:Living Donors; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012307:Risk Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014019:Tissue Donors; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous / Q000009:adverse effects