Login to Access Video or Poster Abstract: MP30-12
Sources of Funding: none

Introduction

Preemptive kidney transplantation (KTx) is recognized as the ideal therapy to avoid dialysis. However, it is not clear whether preemptive KTx recipients experience an improvement in quality of life (QOL) after KTx that exceeds that of non-preemptive KTx recipients, since preemptive KTx recipients have not experienced the heavy burden of dialysis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in QOL for preemptive and non-preemptive KTx recipients following transplantation.

Methods

Patients included in this study underwent living kidney transplantation at our hospital between April 2011 and August 2015. All recipients with functioning transplants for more than 12 months after KTx were included in the study. QOL was assessed by the Short Form 36 (SF-36) preoperatively and 3 and 12 months postoperatively. Categorical variables were compared with the chi-square test, and continuous variables were compared with the Mann–Whitney U test or Tukey’s test. A value of P < 0.05 was considered to be significant.

Results

Fourteen preemptive and 22 non-preemptive recipients were enrolled. The preemptive group included 3 women (21.4%) and 11 men (78.6%), and there was no significant difference in the proportion of men and women between the groups. The average baseline scores were similar between the preemptive and non-preemptive groups. In the non-preemptive group, the general health, social functioning, and vitality scores were higher than baseline at 12 months (38.4 vs 48.4, 42.2 vs 50.9, 45.5 vs 55.1, respectively; P < 0.05). In contrast, in the preemptive group, only the vitality score was better at 3 months (44.6 vs 56.0, P < 0.05). The mental component score showed significant improvement at 12 months (48.6 vs 56.1, < 0.05) in the non-preemptive group. However, it was not significantly changed in the preemptive group (50.5 vs 51.1, p = 0.9898).

Conclusions

Post-Tx improvement in QOL is more evident in the non-preemptive group. Preemptive KTx recipients are not as mentally satisfied as non-preemptive patients following KTx.

Funding

none