Korean J Transplant.  2022 Nov;36(Supple 1):S289. 10.4285/ATW2022.F-4280.

Incidence of cardiovascular events and mortality in kidney transplant recipients compared to the general population in Korea

• Ryu J
• Jeon HJ
• Tae Yeon TY
• Kim J
• Yang J

• KMID: 2535516
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4285/ATW2022.F-4280

Abstract

Although kidney transplant (KT) reduces the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared to the patients staying with dialysis, still, CVD is a major risk factor for mortality and CVD death in KT population. However, few studies about the relative incidence of CVD in Asian KT population. This study aimed to assess the incidence of CVD events with or without cerebrovascular accident, and death in a prospective KT cohort compared to general population. We analyzed incidence rates for 1,080 patients from the Korean cohort study for outcome in patients with kidney transplantation (KNOW-KT). Standard incidence rate (SIR) in KT population was calculated by normalization to that in the general population using data from the National Health Insurance Service. Additionally, SIR was also calculated according to renal function. During a median follow-up of 7.1 years, the incidence of CVD, CVD with cerebrovascular accident, and all-cause mortality was 7.8, 9.5, and 4.8 per 1,000 person-years, respectively. Compared to the general population, the cohort KT population showed significantly higher risk of CVD (SIR, 2.60; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.99–3.40; P<0.001) and higher all-cause mortality (SIR, 1.67; 95% CI, 1.46–1.91; P<0.001). Especially, all-cause mor-tality increased with increasing chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage (stage G3: hazard ratio, 2.45; P<0.001; stage G4: hazard ratio, 2.03; P<0.001) after adjustment. CVD risk was increased as the CKD stage was higher from G1 to G4. This study showed that KT population still has a higher risk for CVD and all-cause mortality in a Korean population.