The impact of donor spontaneous intracranial haemorrhage vs. other donors on long-term renal graft and patient survival.
BACKGROUND
Donor cause of death has a significant impact on transplant survival in heart transplants recipients. The objective of this study was to determine if long-term renal allograft and patient survival differed between grafts donated by donors who died of spontaneous intracranial haemorrhage (SIH) compared with those with other causes of death (OCOD).


METHODS
Between 1990 and 2001, 1526 renal transplants were performed (711 SIH donors and 815 OCOD donors) at our unit. Serum creatinine levels at 1 yr, graft half-life and annual graft failure rate were measured for both groups. Renal graft and patient survivals between the groups were compared. Relative risk for SIH donors and other confounding variables was measured using Cox proportional hazards models.


RESULTS
Graft half-life results were obtained for SIH (8 yr) and OCOD (10.13 yr) recipients. Graft and patient survival at 5 and 10 yr was 68.5% and 39.3% respectively for the SIH group vs. 76.8% and 51.9% respectively for the OCOD group (p < 0.001). However, SIH graft recipients were significantly older with more females. After adjustment for differences in baseline variables between the groups, donor cause of death did not have an independent effect on long-term graft or patient survival.


CONCLUSIONS
Spontaneous intracranial haemorrhage as a cause of donor death, failed to have a significant independent effect on long-term allograft and patient survival.
Department of Nephrology, Beaumont Hospital, Beaumont, Dublin, Ireland. olwyn.johnston@ucd.ie
Olwyn
O
Johnston
Patrick
P
O'Kelly
Susan
S
Spencer
Phyllis
P
Cunningham
Anthony
A
Dorman
John
J
Donohoe
Joseph J
JJ
Walshe
David
D
Hickey
Dilly M
DM
Little
Peter J
PJ
Conlon
D000328:Adult; D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D020300:Intracranial Hemorrhages; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000276:immunology* / Q000401:mortality*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014019:Tissue Donors; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous; D016896:Treatment Outcome