The characteristics of patients returning to hemodialysis due to nonfunctioning graft in Turkey

Renal transplantation is the most effective treatment modality for end-stage renal failure. According to the Ministry of Health Organ Transplant Registration System, despite the presence of 14,936 renal transplant recipients in Turkey, there are not enough data about the prognosis of these patients. Therefore, we aimed to ascertain the rate of patients returning to hemodialysis (HD) due to nonfunctioning graft in our country. One thousand four hundred and ninety-eight (males: 826, females: 672) HD patients who undergo HD at 22 HD centers in total, from different geographical regions to represent our country were examined retrospectively. The informations were obtained from patient registry files and anamnesis which were in HD centers. The number of patients returning to HD due to the loss of graft function was 77 (males: 56, females: 21). Eleven of the patients had transplantation from cadavers (14%) and 66 from living donors (86%). Prevelance of patients, who return to HD after the failure of renal transplantation, between HD patients was 5.1. The mean duration of return to HD after renal transplantation was 6.7 ± 5.9 years for all patients. There was no significant difference in the duration without HD after transplantation between two groups when cadaveric and living donor transplants were compared (P = 0.759). There was no statistically significant difference in duration without HD after transplantation between patients receiving HD treatment before transplantation and preemptive transplant (P = 0.212). The prevelance of patients, who return to HD due to nonfunctioning graft among HD patients was 5.1. The duration without HD were similar after transplantation from both cadavers and living donors. The duration without HD was found longer among those who were operated before 2000.