De Novo Heart Failure After Kidney Transplantation: Trends in Incidence and Outcomes

Background: Heart failure is an important cause of morbidity and mortality following kidney transplantation. Some studies in the general population have shown that the incidence of heart failure has decreased during the past 20 years. However, it is not currently known whether such a trend exists in the kidney transplantation population.

Study design: Retrospective observational cohort study.

Setting & participants: Adult patients included in the US Renal Data System who underwent their first kidney transplantation in the United States between 1998 and 2010 with at least 6 months of continuous Medicare parts A and B coverage before transplantation and no prior evidence for a diagnosis of heart failure before kidney transplantation.

Predictors: Calendar year of transplantation and calendar year of posttransplantation heart failure diagnosis.

Outcomes: De novo posttransplantation heart failure defined using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision diagnosis codes and mortality following de novo posttransplantation heart failure diagnosis. Secular trends in de novo post-kidney transplantation heart failure were examined using Cox proportional hazards analysis.

Results: Within a study cohort of 48,771 patients, 7,269 developed de novo heart failure within 3 years of kidney transplantation, with a median time to heart failure of 0.76 years. The adjusted HR for heart failure with death as competing risk comparing patients who underwent transplantation in 2010 with those who underwent transplantation in 1998 was 0.69 (95% CI, 0.60-0.79). No temporal trend in mortality following a diagnosis of post-kidney transplantation heart failure was observed.

Limitations: Potential residual confounding from either incorrectly ascertained or unavailable confounders. The cohort was limited to Medicare beneficiaries.

Conclusions: Adjusted for demographic and clinical characteristics, the risk for developing de novo post-kidney transplantation heart failure has declined significantly between 1998 and 2010, with no apparent change in subsequent mortality.