Decreased use of post-renal transplant imaging

The current need to evaluate necessity and cost of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures extends to transplant services. We reviewed our experience over the past 3 years as we have moved away from routine post-transplant nuclear medicine scans, ultrasounds, and cystograms.

From January 1, 1992 to December 31, 1994, 252 kidney transplants were performed at Virginia Mason Medical Center. There were 74 live donor and 178 cadaver donor kidneys transplanted. The records of these patients were reviewed for the type and number of post-transplant imaging done during their initial hospitalization.

During the study period, the number of post-transplant imaging studies per patient decreased from 2.7 to 1.4 (P = 0.000), the percentage of patients discharged without any studies rose from 2.8% to 24.4% (P = 0.001), and the trend in 1-year actual graft survival increased from 84.7% to 93.0% (P = 0.187).

Post-transplant imaging studies can be safely reduced. Many patients with good initial graft function can avoid having any studies.