Cerebral hemorrhage in recipients of renal transplantation

The causes and circumstances of intracerebral hematoma after kidney transplantation have been poorly studied. No data are available on its impact on outcome after a successful renal grafting.

We used the Mayo Clinic medical diagnostic index to identify the patients with a diagnosis of intracerebral hematoma among the 1573 patients who received a renal transplant at the Mayo Clinic between 1966 and 1998.

Ten intracranial hematomas occurred in 9 patients and were the cause of death in 6 (1%) of the 530 patients known to have died. The interval from renal transplantation to intracranial hematoma ranged from 12 to 114 months (average, 57 months). All patients with intracranial hemorrhage had poorly controlled hypertension. Intracranial hematoma was more frequently and significantly associated with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (4/146 [2.7%]; P<.01) and with diabetes mellitus (3/410 [0.7%]; P<.01) than with other underlying causes of renal failure (2/1017 [0.2%]).

In this preliminary study, the risk of cerebral hemorrhage may have increased 10-fold in patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease and 4-fold in patients with diabetes mellitus, when compared with the population of patients having other causes of renal failure. Most cerebral hemorrhages were catastrophic and fatal but appeared to be responsible for only 1% of the deaths after renal transplantation.