Renal Graft Survival Similar for Toxoplasma Ab-Positive, Negative Donors

FRIDAY, Aug. 16, 2024 (HealthDay News) — For recipients of renal transplant, graft survival is similar for Toxoplasma antibody-positive donors (TPD) and Toxoplasma-negative donors, according to a study published online July 11 in Transplant International.

Lavjay Butani, M.D., and Daniel Tancredi, Ph.D., from the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, used data from the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network database to compare graft survival in deceased donor renal transplant recipients, stratified by Toxoplasma immunoglobulin (Ig)G status. A model for graft failure, categorized by Toxoplasma IgG status, adjusted for confounders, was applied to first kidney-only transplant recipients from 2018 to 2022.

Overall, 4,317 of the 51,422 transplants (8.4 percent) were from TPD. The researchers found that the groups had similar acute rejection and graft failure (5 percent each). Crude graft failure was 7.3 and 6.5 failures per 100 person-years for TPD recipients and for the Toxoplasma-negative group, respectively. The crude failure rate ratio was 1.14, and the adjusted hazard rate ratio was 1.04 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.94 to 1.15; P = 0.39).

“In transplants, kidneys are the greatest need,” Butani said in a statement. “Because of increased diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions, the wait list just gets progressively longer. We hope these findings will help increase the supply of donor kidneys.”

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