Prevalence of silent gastrointestinal complications in maintenance renal transplant population

This study aims to determine the prevalence of silent GI complications within a stable renal transplant population and to investigate whether the conversion to enteric-coated myco-phenolate sodium (EC-MPS, Myfortic) would improve symptom scores. This was a single-center, open-label, non-randomized, prospective study. Patients without any history of GI com-plaints were evaluated by means of the gastrointestinal symptom rating scale (GSRS), with subse-quent switch to EC-MPS in a group of patients. Silent complications were defined as patients who voiced no GI complaints at clinic visits despite a score of > or = 2 on GSRS scale. A total of 236 stable patients participated in the trial. The prevalence of baseline scores > or = 2 was relatively high with abdominal pain 29.66%, reflux 37.28%, indigestion 50%, constipation 58.47% and diarrhea 33.4%. Of 236 patients, 80 were converted to EC-MPS. There was statistically significant improvement on all scales in the subgroup of patients with GSRS score > or = 2 (P < 0.05). In conclusion, the GSRS scale identified a high percentage of silent gastrointestinal complications in this renal transplant population. The converted patients with higher GSRS scores reported a sustained improvement.