Abstract

Alaa Alden Ramadan Al-Kadour72447*

Objective: Renal transplantation has become the optimal treatment for patients with End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Renal transplant recipients had a greater survival rate, better quality of life and reduced costs when compared to long-term dialysis in ESRD patients. Owing to these results, the demand for renal transplantation has increased over time. In this study, we aimed to share our experience in kidney transplantation by presenting the data of kidney transplants performed in Al-Assad University Hospital, Damascus, kidney transplantation unit from January, 2020 to September, 2021.

Material and methods: Retrospective data was collected from archives of registries, Al-Assad University Hospital during the period from January, 2020 until late October, 2021. The demographic data were collected in addition to their follow up during hospitalization and up to one year post transplantation.

Results: Renal transplantation was performed to 101 patients among whom 14 patients dropped out of follow-up because they traveled abroad. So, our study included 87 patients from the total number of kidney transplant, 62 (71.2%) male and 25 (28.7%) female. All of the transplanted kidneys were from living donors. The donor-recipient degree of propinquity; 42 (48.2%) transplants were received from related donors and 45 (51.8%) were non-related. Patients and graft survival after 1 year was 97.7% and 93.1% respectively. 71 (81%) patients were complication-free, lymphocele was found in three (3%) patients, infections (pneumonia, urinary tract infection) during hospitalization were noted in nine (10%) patients and six (6%) patients had complications leading to graft failure (two patients were rejected, one patient had recurrent disease, two patients had renal vein thrombosis, one patient had graft infarction due to surgical complications and one patient had acute tubular necrosis). There was no statistically significant relationship between the graft survival and the length of dialysis duration pre-transplantation (p=0.851), preemptive transplant (p=0.084) and type of induction therapy (p=0.318).

Conclusion: Our experience showed that our renal transplant program has an acceptable outcome comparable to international outcome and can be successfully introduced in resource-constrained centers in developing countries.