Introduction: Renal transplantation is a treatment of choice for patients with end‑stage renal disease. The main goal of transplant care is to achieve the best long‑term patient survival (PS) and graft survival (GS).
Objectives: We aimed to assess the impact of various immunosuppression (IS) protocols on PS and GS following renal transplantation.
Patients and methods: This was a retrospective single‑center cohort study including a total of 765 consecutive adult renal transplant recipients (RTRs) who underwent transplantation between 1998 and 2003. The primary endpoints included PS and GS. The secondary endpoints were graft function determined by estimated glomerular filtration rate and hospitalization length per patient per year.
Results: Ten‑year PS and GS rates were 88.6% and 78.7%, respectively. The intent‑to‑treat (ITT) group received IS that was later changed, whereas in the group on randomized therapy (ORT), the same IS protocol was maintained during follow‑up. The ITT group had significantly better PS and GS than the ORT group. In the ITT group, patients treated with a combination of tacrolimus (TAC) and azathioprine (AZA), cyclosporine (CSA) and AZA, or CSA and mycophenolic acid metabolites (MPAs) had significantly better PS than those treated with TAC and MPA. The ORT group receiving AZA in any combination also had significantly better PS than MPA‑treated individuals.
Conclusions: The effect of IS protocols on long‑term outcomes varies depending on patient subpopulations. Immunosuppressive therapy solves rejection‑related problems but does not address the increasing mortality of RTRs due to cardiovascular diseases, malignancies, or infections. Therefore, treatment recommendations should be individualized and posttransplant care, provided mainly by internists, should be carefully structured to improve long‑term outcomes of renal transplantation.