Prevalence of abnormal glucose metabolism in Chinese renal transplant recipients: a single centre study.

Background: Post-transplant diabetes mellitus (PTDM) after renal transplantation is associated with adverse outcome on patient and graft survival. Fasting blood glucose alone will underestimate diabetes and also ignores diagnosis of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT). IGT has a strong correlation with diabetes and cardiovascular risk.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we estimate the prevalence of abnormal glucose metabolism (AGM) using oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and identify its predictive factors. Patients who received kidney transplantation in our centre without pre-transplant diabetes were recruited. OGTT was performed in patients with fasting glucose levels between 5.6 and 6.9 mmol/L for at least two occasions 6 months post-transplantation.

Results: Of 119 patients recruited, 31 had OGTT performed. The prevalence of PTDM, IGT and IFG was 21.8 (26/119)%, 6.7 (8/119)% and 3.4 (4/119)% respectively. Thus the overall prevalence of AGM was 31.9%. Age (P = 0.003), body mass index (P = 0.032), hepatitis B seropositivity status (P = 0.01), CMV infection (P = 0.02) and acute rejection (P = 0.002) were all associated with development of AGM. Using multivariate analysis, only older age at transplant (OR 1.09), history of acute rejection (OR 3.40) and hepatitis B seropositivity (OR 3.13) were significantly associated with the development of AGM.

Conclusion: AGM is common in our renal transplant recipients.