Pediatric renal transplantation in Southern Saudi Arabia: A single-center retrospective study

Background: The outcome of pediatric renal transplantation (RT) has improved over the last decades. Aims and Objectives: To study the outcome of pediatric transplantation at our center including patient and graft survival, acute rejection, and surgical complications. Materials and Methods: A retrospective review of pediatric RT outcomes at the only transplant center in Southern Saudi Arabia. Results: between 11/2013 till 03/2020, 63 RT were performed in pediatric recipients 2 through 18 years of age (mean 11.7 ± 3.75) including 43 patients (68.2%) aged 14 and younger. Average BMI-height-age-z were 66.05 ± 6.65 percentile. 49 patients (77.7%) received kidneys from adult living donors (LD), 8(16%) were unrelated donors.41% had preemptive KT. The commonest known etiologies of ESRD were focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, Post Urethral valve, and dysplastic kidney (9.5% each). Thymoglobulin and Basiliximab were used as induction therapy in 37 (58.7%) and 26 (41.3%) patients respectively. With a mean follow-up of 80 months, 1-year and 5-year graft survival rates for LD and deceased donors were (97.2%, 86.4%) and (96.4%, 76%) respectively. 1-year and 5-year patients survival rates were 100%. Conclusions: pediatric renal transplantation outcome at our center, despite the low volume of cases, is encouraging.