Outcomes of Kidney Transplantation Performed by Urologists in Collaboration with Nephrologists: a Small Single Center Experience

Abstract

To evaluate the outcomes of kidney transplantations performed by general urologists in collaboration with nephrologists by analyzing the clinical results. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 164 kidney transplantations performed at our center from July 1998 to December 2015. We obtained demographic data, anthropometric information, laboratory findings, and patient/graft survival data. The recipients included 99 (66.1%) men with a median ± standard deviation (SD) age of 41 ± 14.5 years, whereas the donors included 65 (40.1%) men with a median ± SD age of 59 ± 10.8 years. Among the recipients, chronic glomerulonephritis (non-biopsied glomerular injury, n = 42) was the most common primary disease that progressed to end-stage kidney disease, followed by IgA nephropathy (n = 33), and diabetic nephropathy (n = 20). Kaplan-Meier graft survival rate was 83.7% at 10 years after transplantation, which is comparable to the nationwide rate of 84.9% at 10 years after living-donor kidney transplantation. Graft survival rate in the ABO blood type incompatible subgroup was 90.5% at 10 years after transplantation, which was not significantly different from 82.2% rate in the ABO blood type compatible subgroup. Donors aged ≥60 years were defined as old-age donors. This old-age donor subgroup showed a significantly lower graft survival rate of 70.5% at 10 years after transplantation compared with 93.1% in donors aged less than 60 years ( p = 0.02 ). Although the number of kidney transplantations at our center was small, outcomes comparable to nationwide outcomes could be achieved through the collaboration of urologists with nephrologists.