Inpatient Dermatology Consultations in Renal Transplant Recipients

Renal transplant recipients (RTR), which are an increasing population, frequently suffer from post-transplant dermatological complications. Despite the well-established role of dermatologists in the outpatient care of these patients, no previous studies were found concerning dermatology consultations for hospitalized RTR.

To investigate the epidemiology of dermatological conditions presented by RTR during hospitalization and assess the impact of dermatology consultations performed in the hospital setting.

Dermatology consultations requested for RTR admitted at a kidney transplantation referral hospital in Brazil over 36 consecutive months were retrospectively included.

176 consultations were included. Infectious dermatoses prevailed (52.3%), followed by inflammatory diseases (14.2%), neoplasms (12.5%) and drug reactions (8.5%). Diagnostic agreement between requesting and consulting teams was 38.1%. Most consultations were motivated by common dermatological conditions, unrelated to admission diagnosis. There were some differences in comparison to previous studies including general inpatients, such as: larger proportion of infectious dermatoses and neoplasms, smaller proportion of inflammatory diseases, higher percentage of patients submitted to skin biopsy, smaller proportion of consultations managed with a single visit and higher probability of a systemic treatment being recommended in this population.

Hospitalized RTR present distinct dermatological epidemiology and higher level of complexity, when compared to studies including general inpatients. Dermatology interventions during hospitalization may be beneficial in the multidisciplinary care of these patients, either contributing to the investigation of systemic conditions or providing relief for cutaneous comorbidities.