Long-term outcome of renal transplantation at a university center in Rio de Janeiro between 1975 and 2000

This study reports the 25-year experience of a single university center with respect to the impact of selected variables on long-term survival and half-life of 742 transplants. We calculated 1-, 5-, and 10-year Kaplan-Meier survival rates for grafts and patients, with separate analyses for HLA match and for each quinquennium. We also investigated the impact of cyclosporine administration and OKT3 induction. Global graft and patient survival rates were 85.2%, 61.0%, and 43.5% and 93.0%, 78.9%, and 66.6% for 1, 5, and 10 years, respectively. The half-life of 23.3 years for the 105 HLA-identical transplants was significantly better (P <.0001) than that for all other matches. Half-lives for 319 1-haplotype matched, 116 living-unrelated, and 153 cadaver grafts were 8.2, 5.7, and 5.6 years, respectively. No survival advantage was noted among these other matches. Introduction of cyclosporine in all non HLA-identical transplants and OKT3 induction for cadaver grafts conferred significant survival advantages compared with no use (P =.0002 and P =.009). There has been a continuous improvement in the long-term results in each quinquennium studied.