Korean J Transplant.  2023 Nov;37(Suppl 1):S109. 10.4285/ATW2023.F-6893.

Incidence of polyvascular disease and associated risk factors in kidney transplant patients

• Cho HJ
• Moon J
• Kim M
• Park M
• Ban TH
• Lim JH
• Choi BS
• Hwang JK

• KMID: 2551729
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4285/ATW2023.F-6893

Abstract

Background
The aim of this study is to determine the incidence of polyvascular events and factors associated with these events among the kidney transplant population, considering the high prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in these patients, which accounts for increased mortality.
Methods
We conducted a retrospective analysis on a consecutive series of 84 kidney transplant recipients who underwent kidney transplantation at our institution between April 2019 and July 2023. The analysis focused on polyvascular disease, including cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, and peripheral arterial disease, and examined variables associated with these conditions.
Results
The mean age of the patient cohort was 54.5±9.9 years, with 59.5% being male patients. Before the surgery, 16 individuals were diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. The mean follow-up period was 21.4 months, during which eight patients experienced polyvascular events after the transplant surgery. There were six patients with cardiovascular disease: one underwent cardiopulmonary resuscitation, three underwent percutaneous coronary intervention, and two only received coronary angiography. In patients with cerebrovascular disease, symptoms improved after conservative care, while in patients with peripheral vascular disease, percutaneous transluminal angioplasty was performed. All these patients had hypertension, and 62.5% of them had a history of both diabetes mellitus and coronary artery disease. In a multivariable logistic regression conducted by considering various variables, it was found that the presence of preoperative cardiovascular disease was significantly associated with the occurrence of polyvascular disease, with a P-value of 0.005.
Conclusions
Through this study, it was observed that the prevalence of polyvascular disease in the kidney transplant patient group is notably high at 9.5%, consistent with previous knowledge. In analyzing the factors associated with this condition, including various underlying diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and others, it was found that only a history of cardiovascular disease had a significant impact on the occurrence of polyvascular disease.