Surveillance of common infections in the early period after renal transplantation in a national center: 2014-2017.

Background: Infection prevention and timely and effective treatment are among the major aims of care in kidney transplant recipients. Pre-transplant vaccination and pre-transplant viral screening have been extensively studied and are now considered standard practice. Early post-operative infection surveillance is mandatory in other vulnerable cohorts, but has not been extensively studied in this population. We hypothesized that surveillance of the most common bacterial infection types in the post-transplant setting would be beneficial and identify key areas for improvement.

Methods: All adult kidney transplant recipients whose surgeries were performed in the Irish national kidney transplant unit over a 1-year period had prospective early post-transplant (first 30 days) infection surveillance in 2014 for surgical site infection, urinary tract infection, and secondary bloodstream infections (Group T0). Several key changes were implemented following scrutiny of infection patterns and clinical practice. Subsequently, infection surveillance was undertaken for 2016 and 2017 (Group T1) to assess the impact of these changes.

Results: Between 2014 and 2017, the number of kidney transplants increased by 32%. The following aspects of clinical practice were the focus of change following analysis of Group T0 data: timing of surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis (SAP) administration, choice of SAP antimicrobial agent, and routine microbiological testing in the peri-operative period. Following implementation of these changes, the timing of SAP administration was greatly improved (45%-100% of cases appropriately timed). The infection rate decreased from 8.9% to 7.4% in 2016, with a further decrease to 4% in 2017 (OR 0.42 (95% CI: 0.16-1.10); P = .08). Compliance with pre-operative microbiological screening improved in Group T1.

Conclusions: Simple clinical practice changes, implemented upon analysis of common bacterial infection surveillance data in the first 30 days after kidney transplantation resulted in more effective SAP administration and improved compliance with routine microbiological testing in the peri-operative period. These interventions have potentially contributed to reduced early post-operative infection rates, despite increased transplant activity in the unit. Infection surveillance is an important and under-utilized way of reducing infections in this vulnerable patient cohort.