Risk Factors for Hypertension After Living Donor Kidney Transplantation in Korea: A Multivariate Analysis

Post-transplantation hypertension is very common and is associated with cardiovascular complications and poor graft survival in kidney transplant recipients. This study aimed to identify risk factors for hypertension after living donor kidney transplantation.

We retrospectively analyzed patients who underwent renal transplantation between January 2009 and April 2012. Hypertension was defined as the use of antihypertensive medications at 12 months post-transplantation. Student t test and chi-squared test were performed for univariate analysis. Logistic regression analysis was performed for multivariate analysis.

Five-hundred thirty-nine patients were enrolled in the analyses. The rate of antihypertensive medication use was 67% at 12 months. In multivariate analysis, male gender (odds ratio [OR], 2.68; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.55-4.61), pretransplantation hypertension (OR, 4.65; 95% CI, 2.14-10.11), donor hypertension (OR, 3.23; 95% CI, 1.05-9.96), high body mass index (BMI; OR, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.12-1.29), and use of cyclosporine (OR, 2.05; 95% CI, 1.28-3.27) were associated with post-transplantation hypertension.

These data show that male recipient, hypertension before transplantation, donor hypertension, high BMI, and cyclosporine use were independent factors associated with hypertension. It would be useful to predict and prevention the hypertension after kidney transplantation.