Which Kidney Transplant Recipients Can Benefit from the Initial Tacrolimus Dose Reduction?
Table 1
Clinical characteristics and laboratory parameters in patients included into the analysis (stratified to the first posttransplant Tc trough level) with comparison to the excluded cohort.
Excluded = 266
Included = 488
ANOVA or chi2
First Tc ≤ 15 ng/ml = 299
First Tc > 15 ng/ml = 189
ANOVA or chi2
Age [years]
43 (42–45)
47 (46–49)
<0.001
45 (44–47)
51 (49–53)
<0.001
Gender [M/F]
137/129
323/165
<0.001
187/112
136/53
0.04
BMI [kg/m2]
23.4 (22.9–23.8)
24.6 (24.2–24.9)
<0.001
23.6 (23.2–24.1)
25.5 (25.0–26.0)
<0.001
Overweight/obese [%]
22.6/2.3
37.1/6.1
<0.001
28.4/5.4
50.8/7.4
<0.001
Dialysis vintage [mo]
46 (41–51)
39 (36–42)
0.17
39 (35–43)
40 (36–45)
0.66
Residual diuresis [ml]
620 (519–722)
626 (558–693)
0.89
622 (536–709)
612 (505–718)
0.88
Hypertension [%]
89.8
91.0
0.70
91.3
90.5
0.80
Diabetes [%]
34.6
9.2
<0.001
6.7
13.2
0.02
Anti-HCV positive [%]
13.9
7.2
0.004
5.4
10.1
0.07
HBs antigen positive [%]
3.4
3.3
0.89
2.7
4.2
0.50
CIT [h]
16 (15–17)
18 (17–19)
0.008
18 (17–19)
18 (17–19)
0.97
First transplant [%]
75.6
86.2
<0.001
86.0
86.8
0.90
Induction [%]
49.2
26.6
<0.001
26.4
27.0
0.97
H2-blocker [%]
15.0
31.1
<0.001
34.8
25.4
0.04
PPIs [%]
81.2
72.5
0.01
71.6
74.1
0.85
Tc initial dose [mg/kg]
0.173 (0.168–0.179)
0.184 (0.181–0.187)
<0.001
0.186 (0.182–0.189)
0.182 (0.178–0.186)
0.22
Tc first trough level [ng/ml]
16.1 (15.1–17.1)
14.7 (14.0–15.3)
0.27
9.9 (9.6–10.2)
22.3 (21.5–23.0)
<0.001
Day of first Tc assessment
1.7 (1.5–1.9)
3.3 (3.2–3.4)
<0.001
3.5 (3.4–3.6)
3.0 (2.8–3.1)
<0.001
Serum creatinine
493 (455–530)
538 (510–565)
0.15
520 (486–555)
564 (519–610)
0.12
Delayed graft function [%]
27.8
26.8
0.84
25.1
29.6
0.32
Data shown as means ± 95% CI or frequencies. Statistics: p values below 0.05 are considered statistically significant. BMI: body mass index, HCV: hepatitis C virus, HBs: hepatitis B surface antigen, CIT: cold ischemia time, HLA: human leukocyte antigen, H2-blocker: H2 receptor blocker, PPIs: proton-pump inhibitors, and Tc: tacrolimus.
