Young adults have worse kidney transplant outcomes than other age groups

The objective of this study was to establish if renal transplant outcomes (graft and patient survival) for young adults in England were worse than for other age groups.

Outcomes for all renal transplant recipients in England (n = 26 874) were collected from Hospital Episode Statistics and the Office for National Statistics databases over 12 years. Graft and patient outcomes, follow-up and admissions were studied for all patients, stratified by age bands.

Young adults (14-23 years) had substantially greater likelihood [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.26, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.10-1.19; P < 0.001] of kidney transplant failure than any other age band. They had a higher non-attendance rate for clinic appointments (1.6 versus 1.2/year; P < 0.001) and more emergency admissions post-transplantation (25% of young adults on average are admitted each year, compared with 15-20% of 34- to 43-year olds). Taking into account deprivation, ethnicity, transplant type and transplant centre, in the 14- to 23-year group, return to dialysis remained significantly worse than all other age bands (HR = 1.41, 95% CI 1.26-1.57). For the whole cohort, increasing deprivation related to poorer outcomes and black ethnicity was associated with poorer outcomes. However, neither ethnicity nor deprivation was over-represented in the young adult cohort.

Young adults who receive a kidney transplant have a significant increased likelihood of a return to dialysis in the first 10 years post-transplant when compared with those aged 34-43 years in multivariable analysis.