Graft survival rate following renal transplantation in diabetic patients

Diabetic nephropathy is the most common cause of kidney failure needing dialysis in most countries of the world. Kidney disease occurs in one-third of diabetic patients, and significantly increases the mortality rates and treatment costs. The aim of the present study was to investigate the survival rate and to determine factors that influence survival among diabetic patients who underwent transplantation at the Shiraz Namazi Hospital Transplant Center during the years 1999 to 2009. This study is a historical cohort study, which examined the graft survival rate among 103 kidney transplant patients with diabetes. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to determine the survival rate and the log-rank test was used to compare survival curves; P-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. The mean follow-up period of patients was 48.15 ± 31.05 months (range: 3.07-118.03 months), and the estimated nine-year graft survival rate was 84.2% (±0.045). Based on the results of the Cox regression model, age of the donor was a contributing factor to graft survival rate. In summary, the graft survival rate in our cohort is satisfactory and comparable with reports from other larger centers in the world.