Pretransplant blood transfusions and related kidney allograft survival

The impact of pretransplant blood transfusions was analyzed in 130 recipients of related kidney grafts. There was no difference in the graft survival rate between the 85 transfused recipients and the 45 nontransfused recipients, but acute rejection episodes occurred less frequently in the former group, the incidence being 49% versus 69% (P less than 0.05). Multitransfused (greater than 20 transfusions) patients had a significantly better graft survival rate than patients receiving 1 to 20 transfusions and patients receiving no blood, The 3-year survival rates in these groups were 93, 70, and 66%, respectively. Pretransplant dialysis had no effect on transplantation outcome.