Infection-related Hospitalizations After Kidney Transplantation in Children: Incidence, Risk Factors, and Cost

Background: Infection is the leading cause of death and hospitalization in renal transplant recipients. We describe posttransplant infections requiring hospitalization, their risk factors and cost in a national pediatric kidney transplantation cohort.

Methods: Data on renal transplant recipients <20 years were extracted from the French National Medicoadministrative Hospital Discharge database between 2008 and 2013 and matched with the Renal Transplant Database. We used Cox regression to study risk factors of hospitalization and calculated the instantaneous risk of hospitalization per month for all infections and by infection type.

Results: Five hundred and ninety-three patients were included, and 660 infection-related hospitalizations were identified in 260 patients. The leading cause of hospitalization was urinary tract infection (UTI), followed by viral infection (16.6 and 15.6 per 100 person-years, respectively). Risk factors were younger age at transplantation, high number of HLA mismatches, and use cyclosporine rather than tacrolimus as first anticalcineurin treatment. Risk factors varied by infection type. Female gender, uropathy, cold ischemia time, and cyclosporine were associated with increased risk of UTI, while only age at transplantation inversely correlated with virus-related hospitalizations. Instantaneous risk of all infections decreased with time, except for cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection that displayed a peak at 6 months posttransplantation after prophylaxis withdrawal. Total cost of infection-related hospitalizations was 1600 kilo-euro (k€) (933 €/person-years).

Conclusions: This study highlights the high burden of infection in transplanted pediatric patients, especially the youngest. This should be considered both for pretransplantation information and designing procedures aiming to decrease hospitalization rate and duration.