Affecting Factors of Arterial Stiffness in Living Related Kidney Transplant Recipients

Arterial stiffness might be affected by several factors including recipient as well as donors. In this study, we aimed to evaluate arterial stiffness in living related kidney transplant recipients before and after transplantation.

We enrolled 47 living related kidney recipients and pulse wave velocity (PWV) was determined before and after transplantation. Donor renal arterial biopsy, recipient iliac artery samples were taken during the operation and PWV was also determined for the donors.

Forty-seven patients completed the study. Post-transplantation follow-up duration was 18.5±5.7 months. Before transplantation, the mean PWV 8.1±1.4 m/sec and it was 7.5±2.0 m/sec after the transplantation (p=0.014). The patients were divided into two groups as with (30 patients) and without (17 patients) a PWV decrease. Recipient age, gender, CRP, PTH, lipids, and blood pressures were not significantly different between the groups. The recipient body mass index was higher in patients with a PWV decrease. Donor-related factors were not different between the groups. We found that blood pressure and LDL cholesterol levels in recipients were associated with a decrease in PWV after the transplantation.

In conclusion, donor-related factors do not seem to have an impact on arterial stiffness in recipients. Pretransplant BMI and posttransplant blood pressure and LDL cholesterol levels were associated with a decrease in PWV.