Impact of cardiac transplantation on kidney function: a single- center experience.

Long-term follow-up of cardiac transplant recipients reveals a progressive decline in kidney function in a significant number of patients. This complication is one of the most important prognostic parameters for the outcome of cardiac transplantation. The risk factors implicated in the pathogenesis of renal dysfunction following cardiac transplantation are numerous, with the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine (CsA) playing a major role. This case-control study was designed to evaluate the role of different risk factors among patients who had been transplanted at the Northern General Hospital Cardiothoracic Centre (CTC) with the possibility of identifying modifiable risk factors that mitigate the nephrotoxicity of CsA. Over a 10-year period, heart transplantation was performed in 205 patients at the CTC. Seventeen patients who experienced chronic renal failure (CRF) and were treated at the outpatient clinic of the Sheffield Kidney Institute were randomly selected from those who had >2-year graft survival and follow-up after cardiac transplantation. As controls, 15 cardiac transplant patients were randomly selected from 32 with comparable survival and follow-up after transplantation and without evidence of significant renal dysfunction (serum creatinine