Changes in Antihypertensive Therapy After Renal Transplantation

Introduction

Post-transplant hypertension is extremely frequent, occurring in 60% to 90% of cases. It is involved in the pathogenesis of chronic graft dysfunction and patient survival.

Objectives

We sought to describe changes in antihypertensive therapy after renal transplantation (RT) depending on the type of pretransplant renal replacement therapy (RRT), hemodialysis (HD) or peritoneal dialysis (PD).

Methods

We performed a retrospective cohort study of RT patients who were divided into 2 groups according to the type of pretransplant RRT (HD group: 69 patients; PD group: 38 patients). Patients with a diagnosis of nonessential hypertension etiology, diagnosis of renal artery stenosis of the graft, active urologic complications, and history of acute graft rejection were excluded. Variables related to chronic kidney disease and RT as well as antihypertensive therapy were studied.

Results

PD patients had reduced number of antihypertensive drugs at 1 month after RT (1.39 ± 1.03) compared with pre-RT (2.16 ± 1.30; P = .001), a trend that was maintained at 6 months (1.70 ± 1.18; P = .06). In HD group, the number of antihypertensive drugs increased at 6 months after RT (1.59 ± 1.17) compared with pretransplant (1.15 ± 1.13; P = .027). The use of calcium channel blockers increased by 10.2% by 1 month (P = .071) and 9.2% (P = .036) by 6 months after RT.

Conclusion

By 1 month after RT, antihypertensive therapy was reduced. Calcium channel blockers were the most common drug group, although it is usually necessary to use more than 1 drug.