Purpose: As general population survival has improved in the last few decades, the age of patients participating in renal transplantation also has increased. This study aimed to investigate the impact of donor and recipient age as predictor of long-term graft survival in renal transplantation.
Methods: We analyzed the transplantation outcome in 598 patients, who received renal transplantation from 1978 to 2003 at Hanyang Universitiy. Patients were divided into four groups according to the age at renal transplantation. Group A (donor age≥50, recipient age≥50, n=19/3.2%), group B (donor age≥50, recipient age＜50, n=153/25.5%), group C (donor age＜50, recipient age≥50, n=69/11.6%), group D (donor age＜50, recipient age＜50, n=357/59.8%). Univariate analysis was used to assess the effect of donor and recipient age as predictor factors of graft outcome. We used Kaplan Meier log-rank method for graft survival and P values less than 0.05 were considered significant.
Results: In elderly donor group, graft survival was 89.8% at 1 year, 76.4% at 3 years and younger donor group was 92.8 at 1year, 84.0% at 3 years and the differences showed statistic significance (P=0.009). Univariate analysis of age factor showed a significant reduction of graft survival in recipients transplanted with kidneys coming from donors older than 50 years, however recipient age greater than 50 years was not found
as an independent risk factor. The incidence of rejection was 24.6% in elderly donor group and 23.5% in younger donor group (P=NS). Among the four groups, the most valuable result was group D and the 1 year and 3 years graft survival were 93.1%, 84.5% respectively but it was not significant statistically (P=0.50).
Conclusion: This result is important for the design of allocation and transplantation strategies for kidneys procured in elderly donors and recipients. (J Korean Soc Transplant 2005;19:22-26)
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