SAN DIEGO—Acute rejection significantly increases the likelihood of renal allograft loss regardless of when it occurs, study findings presented at Kidney Week 2012 suggest.

The study included 1,067 renal transplant recipients at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, Korea, of whom 278 (26.1%) had biopsy-proven acute rejection and 789 (73.9%) had no acute rejection.  Of the 278 patients, 142 patients (51.1%) had early acute rejection (EAR) and 136 (48.9%) had late acute rejection (LAR). EAR and LAR were defined as acute rejection less than and more than three months after transplantation, respectively.

Compared with patients who did not have acute rejection, EAR patients were more likely to be male. EAR and LAR recipients primarily had older donors than the no rejection group. The researchers observed no differences in patient survival among the three groups and no difference between the EAR and LAR patients with regard to graft and patient survival.

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Transplantation