Kidney retransplantation in comparison with first kidney transplantation.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to depict the outcome of second and third kidney allografts in comparison with first kidney allografts.

Methods: Among 2150 kidney transplantations are 103 second and 5 third transplantations. Demographic characteristics and survivals of retransplanted patients were compared with a randomly selected group of first kidney recipients, consisting of two cases matched with each retransplanted patient for age, gender, and date of transplantation.

Results: Retransplanted patients consisted of 78 men and 30 women of mean age 32.63 +/- 11.92 years. They had received kidneys from 91 living-unrelated and 17 living-related donors. Median followup was 27 months. One-, 2-, 3-, and 5-year graft survivals were 81.4%, 78.9%, 78.9%, and 73.7% among retransplants, versus 92.9%, 91.5%, 89.8%, and 85.3% in the control group, respectively (P = .0037). Patient survival was 96%, 94.6%, 92.4%, and 87.8% in the retransplant group versus 93.1%, 92.4%, 90.9%, 87.4% in the control group, respectively (P = .63). Also, graft survivals were slightly lower in female compared to male retransplant patients (P = .09). No significant difference in survival rates was seen in different age groups.

Conclusion: It seems that kidney retransplantation can yield desirable outcomes, albeit relatively lower graft survivals.