COMPLICATIONS - CARDIOVASCULAR

A. Sharma¹, M. Minz¹, K.L. Gupta², R.M. Kumar³, N. Pandit^4
1Renal Transplant Surgery, POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH, Chandigarh/INDIA, ²Nephrology, POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH, CHANDIGARH/INDIA, ³Dept Of Cardiology, POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH, CHANDIGARH/INDIA, ⁴Dept Of General Surgery, POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH, CHANDIGARH/INDIA

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Introduction: Cardiovascular complications are the leading cause of death in patients with end-stage renal disease. Kidney transplantation resolves many of the cardiac abnormalities associated with chronic renal failure. The present study was conducted to evaluate the impact of renal transplantation against the cardiac abnormalities. Methods: A total of 50 chronic renal failure patients on maintenance dialysis underwent kidney transplantation. The cardiac parameters were evaluated by M-mode 2-dimensional and tissue Doppler echocardiography before and 3 months after transplantation. Results: The mean age and duration of dialysis were 35 years and 7 months respectively. An improvement in anemia from haemoglobin level of 8.3 g/dl to 11.8 g/dl and decrease in mean systolic blood pressure and number of antihypertensive drugs were observed after transplantation. Echocardiographic measurement showed great improvement in left ventricular mass index and decrease in left ventricular diastolic dimension of left ventricle: 190±35 vs 134±35 g/m2 (p=.001) and 52±7 mm vs 45±5.2 mm (p=.001) respectively. Moreover, ejection fraction and peak systolic velocity (S wave) at lateral annulus rose significantly from 55±11% to 64±6.2% (p=.001) and from 8.2±1.76 cm/s to 8.6±2.08 cm/s (p=.005) respectively. Valvular abnormalities and pericardial effusion were present in 59% and 12% respectively which also improved after transplantation. Conclusions: These findings show that successful kidney transplantation can significantly improve the cardiac function of chronic renal failure patients on maintenance dialysis by 3 months posttransplant with reversal of physiological changes induced by uremic state.

Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.