Certain physical disabilities may affect outcomes in kidney transplant recipients

Visual and walking disabilities in kidney transplant recipients were linked with poor outcomes in a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2018 October 23-October 28 at the San Diego Convention Center.

It's unclear whether physical disabilities in transplant recipients affect the function of transplanted organs or patients' survival. To investigate, Alvin Thomas (Johns Hopkins) and his colleagues studied 500 kidney transplant recipients at two medical centers from 2013 to 2017, comparing normally able recipients to recipients with self-reported hearing, visual, physical, or walking disabilities.

The prevalence of self-reported disability prior to kidney transplantation was 24%. Transplant recipients with a reported visual disability had a 3.4-times higher risk of failure of the transplanted organ compared with recipients without visual disability. Transplant recipients with reported walking disability had a 3.1-times higher risk of dying compared with recipients without walking disability. Investigators did not find evidence of better or worse outcomes associated with other disabilities. The findings suggest that kidney transplant recipients with visual or walking disabilities might benefit from additional supportive care and monitoring post-transplant.

"While data on physical functioning is routinely collected by the transplant registry in the United States, specifics on physical disabilities are not captured. Our work highlights the prevalence of specific physical disabilities in our two-center cohort and describes their post-transplant outcomes," said Thomas.