One hundred six live kidney donors in a single German transplantation center: renal, physical, and psychological follow-up.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to analyze the psychological and physical status as well as renal outcomes of 106 live kidney donors between 1993 and 2003. METHODS: We performed general and nephrological examinations, including measurements of creatinine clearance (ClCr), proteinuria, and 24-hour blood pressure monitoring. We evaluated the psychological and general health situation using the standardized SF-36 questionnaire. RESULTS: We evaluated 69/106 (65%) live kidney donors at 5.3 ± 0.4 years after donation. The reason for the 37 drop-outs were unknown current address (n = 21), refusal of study participation (n = 14), and death due to accident and suicide (n = 2). In the 69 donors renal function was well preserved: serum creatinine 1.3 ± 0.0 mg/dL; ClCr 81 ± 2 mL/min; postdonation to predonation ClCr ratio 0.73 ± 0.02; and proteinuria 104 ± 11 mg/d. None of the donors experienced renal failure, although 36/69 (52%) patients have developed de novo hypertension. Compared with normotensive donors, the hypertensive subgroup was significantly older at the time of donation (50.7 ± 1.4 vs 46.4 ± 1.6 years; P = .010) and had a longer interval since donation (6.4 ± 0.2 vs 3.9 ± 0.1 years; P = .001). SF-36 questionnaire results in live kidney donors showed higher scores regarding physical (54.3 ± 0.8 vs 49.3 ± 0.1; P = .048) and psychological health (53.8 ± 0.6 vs 50.7 ± 0.1; P = .043) compared with the average German population. CONCLUSION: Our cohort of live kidney donors showed good renal outcomes and superior SF-36 scores in both physical and psychological health compared with the German population. The risk of de novo hypertension increased with age and time after donation. Blood pressure screening should be regularly performed especially in the long term after donation.

sCD30 and neopterin as risk factors of chronic renal transplant rejection: impact of cyclosporine A, tacrolimus, and mycophenolate mofetil.

High pretransplantation sCD30 levels have been shown to be associated with lower 5-year kidney graft survival in mainly Cyclosporine A (CsA)-treated recipients (Collaborative Transplant Study database). To analyze the effect of different immunosupressive regimens (CsA/Azathioprine [Aza], CsA/Mycophenolate Mofetil [MMF], Tacrolimus [Tacr]/Aza) on sCD30, we assessed serum sCD30 and neopterin together with in vitro cytokine responses in a prospective randomized study of 84 renal transplant recipients before, 4 months, and 1 year after transplantation. Panel-reactive antibody (PRA) formation, HLA matching, ATG induction therapy, and acute rejections had no impact on sCD30 levels, whereas cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections induced an up-regulation of sCD30 4 months posttransplantation (P = .003). Whereas MMF showed no effect on sCD30 compared with Aza therapy, we found a significant impact of Tacr versus CsA treatment (1-year sCD30 > or = 60 U/mL: 14/42 (33%), CsA; 1/38 (3%), Tacr; P < .0005). Chronic rejection 2 years posttransplantation was associated with elevated 1-year sCD30 (P = .001) and neopterin levels (P = .006). Our data indicate that the Th2 activation marker sCD30 provides a risk factor for chronic rejection independent of classical immunological risk factors and may be down-regulated using Tacr treatment.