Reappraisal of long-term renal replacement therapy. Renal transplantation: medical versus statistical approach

The validity of the numerous statistical methods used for the assessment of the results achieved with renal transplantation performed for terminally uremic patients may be challenged by a medicalized approach of the patient's post transplantation course and outcome. This assumption has been applied to a population of 700 patients who received a grafted kidney in our unit between November 1972 and December 1990. Among 77 patients who had been followed up for 10-15 years after grafting, 75% had not suffered any serious related complication during the first decade after transplantation. In contrast, among the whole transplant population, transplantation entailed either a rapidly fatal issue due to an unpredictable and irreversible complication in 45 patients (6.4%), or a state of chronic illness with severely disabling complications in 150 others (21.5%). At present, the main cause of concern remains, however, the persistent long-term graft loss due to chronic rejection. Nevertheless, the advances and results achieved in the field of organ transplantation in recent years justifies the policy which privileges renal transplantation as the first-choice method of renal replacement therapy for every terminally uremic patient aged less than 60-65 years in whom careful workup does not reveal any clinical/psychological contraindication.