1995 Volume 38 Issue 5 Pages 347-352
To determine whether kidney transplantation contributes to improving the mortalityof diabetic patients with end-stage renal disease, we compared survival data of 21 diabetic kidney transplant recipients with those of 247 diabetic patients undergoing dialysis therapy and those of 615 non-diabetic kidney transplant recipients. The overall patient survival after the onset of dialysis was significantly higher in the diabetic transplant group than in the diabetic dialysis group: 94.1% versus 59.8% at 5 years and 78.4% versus 37.7% at 10 years (p =0.011). After adjusting age at the onset of dialysis, sex, and co-morbid conditions using the Cox's proportional hazards model, kidney transplantation had an improving effect on patient survival with a relative risk of 0.336 for transplantation in reference to dialysis. The overall graft and patient survival after transplantation did not differ significantly between the diabetic and non-diabetic recipients at 5 years: 83.5% and 90.5%, in the diabetic group and 74.8% and 89.2% in the non-diabetic group. In conclusion, kidney transplantation is an effective therapeutic modality also in patients with diabetes mellitus concerning to lower mortality than dialysis.
