title: The role of obesity in kidney transplantation outcome.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The number of obese kidney transplant candidates has been growing. However, there are conflicting results regarding to the effect of obesity on kidney transplantation outcome. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the body mass index (BMI) and graft survival by using continuous versus categoric BMI values as an independent risk factor in renal transplantation.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively reviewed 376 kidney transplant recipients to evaluate graft and patient survivals between normal-weight, overweight, and obese patients at the time of transplantation, considering BMI as a categoric variable.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Obese patients were more likely to be male and older than normal-weight recipients (P = .021; P = .002; respectively). Graft loss was significantly higher among obese compared with nonobese recipients. Obese patients displayed significantly lower survival compared with nonobese subjects at 1 year (76.9% vs 35.3%; P = .024) and 3 years (46.2% vs 11.8%; P = .035).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Obesity may represent an independent risk factor for graft loss and patient death. Careful patient selection with pretransplantation weight reduction is mandatory to reduce the rate of early posttransplantation complications and to improve long-term outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department G.F. Ingrassia, Section of Hygiene and Public Health, University Hospital of Catania, Catania, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Grosso
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Corona
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mistretta
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zerbo
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sinagra
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Giaquinta
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Caglià
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Amodeo
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leonardi
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gula
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Veroux
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Veroux
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015992:Body Mass Index; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome