The Complex Evaluation of the Cardiovascular Risk in the Kidney Transplant Patients

Kidney transplantation (KT) represents the best treatment for patients with end-stage kidney disease, being associated with improved outcomes and reduced mortality. Although the survival benefit with KT is mostly attributable to reduction in cardiovascular (CV) disease, KT recipients continue to remain at higher risk for CV-related morbidity and mortality when compared with the general population. Additionally, CV events represent the leading cause of death in KT recipients with a functioning allograft. KT recipients have high rates of hospitalization for myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, dysrhythmias, stroke, malignant hypertension, and cardiac arrest. Significant amounts of research have been aimed at reducing event rates, primarily aimed at understanding prevalent risk factors, defining outcomes, and application of guideline-based care.

The post-KT milieu represents the confluence of several traditional and nontraditional CV risk factors contributing to the significant CV risk in this population. CV disease remains an understudied and undertreated source of morbidity and mortality in KT patients. Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are generally excluded from major cardiovascular outcome trials, and this phenomenon of aversion to including patients with CKD in CV trials and providing appropriate goal-directed medical and interventional therapies (renalism) extends into KT .

The main aim of this study is to evaluate holistically the CV risk in a KT population. The investigators will compare bioimpedance spectroscopy derived fluid status parameters (overhydration, total body water, extracellular water and intracellular water) with clinical evaluation, lung ultrasonography, pulse wave velocity, different biomarkers, and echocardiographic characteristics and also to determine the impact of these parameters on renal and CV outcomes in the same population.