Operative and postoperative non-surgical complications in diabetic patients undergoing renal transplantation

Eighty-one insulin-dependent diabetic (19.7%) and 330 non-diabetic patients (80.3%) underwent renal transplantation between September 1977 and September 1981. Preoperatively, the diabetics had a higher incidence of ST-T-changes in ECG (62.2 vs. 39.8%) (p less than 0.001) as well as pulmonary congestion (14.5 vs. 5.2%) (p less than 0.05) and pleural effusion (10.1 vs. 4.5%) in chest X-rays than non-diabetic patients. The incidences of marked blood pressure changes and cardiac arrhythmias during anaesthesia did not differ between the groups, nor did the incidences of ischaemic heart attacks, pneumonia and pulmonary atelectasis in the chest X-rays during the first postoperative week. Diabetic patients had higher mortality during the first postoperative month (6/81; 7.4% vs. 4/330; 1.2%) (p less than 0.01) than non-diabetic patients.