Surgical complications after renal transplantation in grafts with multiple arteries.
BACKGROUND
Renal transplantation with multiple arteries appears, in literature, associated to a major index of surgical complications. This study compared the surgical complications and short-term outcome renal transplants with multiple arteries and single artery grafts.


METHODS
The data of 64 renal transplants with multiple arteries performed between January 1995 and December 1999 were compared to the ones of 292 transplants with single renal artery. The aspects analyzed were number of arteries of the graft, donor type, vascular reconstruction technique, the occurrence of surgical complications, the incidence of delayed graft function, graft function 1 month after transplantation, graft loss and the patients' deaths.


RESULTS
The incidence of surgical complications in grafts with multiple arteries and single renal artery was respectively: vascular--3.1% and 3.1%; urological--6.3% and 2.7% and other surgical complications--15.6% and 10.6%, respectively. The incidence of lymphoceles was 3.1% in grafts with a single artery and 12.5% in grafts with more than 1 artery (p = 0.0015). The incidence of delayed graft function in grafts with multiple arteries and with a single renal artery was respectively 35.1 and 29.1% (p = 0.295). Mean serum creatinine at the 30th postoperative day was 2.46 and 1.81 in grafts with multiple and with 1 artery, respectively (p = 0.271).


CONCLUSIONS
Kidney transplantation using grafts with single and multiple arteries present similar indexes of surgical complications and short-term outcome; lymphoceles were more frequent among grafts with multiple arteries.
Mazzucchi
Eduardo
E
Renal Transplantation Unit, Division of Urology, University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil. mazuchi@terra.com.br
Souza
Auro A
AA
Nahas
Willian C
WC
Antonopoulos
Ioannis M
IM
Piovesan
Affonso C
AC
Arap
Sami
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007668:Kidney / Q000098:blood supply*; D007674:Kidney Diseases / Q000628:therapy; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects*; D008210:Lymphocele; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D012077:Renal Artery / Q000601:surgery*; D012189:Retrospective Studies