The results of kidney transplantation in elderly recipients with diabetes mellitus

Introduction. Currently, the type 2 diabetes mellitus is in the nature of an epidemic of non-infectious etiology. In this regard, the incidence of diabetes mellitus complications, including diabetic nephropathy, which lead to end-stage chronic renal disease, is also increasing. The treatment of type 2 diabetic patients with end-stage chronic renal disease presents significant difficulties, which is associated with an additional risk of developing infectious complications and, as a rule, the presence of concomitant pathology of the cardiovascular system.

Objective. To analyze the results of kidney transplantation in elderly patients with diabetes mellitus in the early postoperative period.

Material and methods. The study is based on a retrospective analysis of the results of 77 kidney transplants ations performed to elderly recipients at N.V. Sklifosovsky Research Institute for Emergency Medicine in the period from 2015 to 2019. The study group included 22 recipients over 60 years old with type 2 diabetes mellitus, as main or concomitant disease. The comparison group consisted of 55 recipients over 60 years without diabetes.

Results. Survival of recipients with type 2 diabetes mellitus was significantly lower (p = 0.026). So, there were 20 surviving recipients (90.9%) in the group of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, and 55 (100%) surviving recipients in the group without diabetes. When comparing the kidney graft survival rates in the recipients between the two groups, no statistically significant difference (p = 0.29) was found. The overall graft survival was 77.3% (n = 17) in the group of recipients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, and 89.1% (n = 49) in the comparison group.

Conclusions. It has been proven that kidney transplant recipients with type 2 diabetes mellitus have a significantly lower survival rate after transplantation than recipients without diabetes; and the kidney graft survivals were not significantly different early after transplantation. The recipients did not show differences in the recovery of the transplanted kidney function depending on the presence of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Authors declare no conflict of interest.

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