Prevalence and Risk Factors of New-onset Diabetes after Transplant in East Africans

Very little is known about the prevalence of new-onset diabetes after transplant (NODAT) in sub-Saharan and Eastern Africans. Most of the data are related to African Americans and to North and South Africans. The aims of this study were to examine the prevalence of NODAT in Sudanese renal transplant recipients, compare it with the published literature, and identify the risk factors for developing NODAT. In total, 150 patients who received a living-related kidney transplant between January 2015 and January 2016 were included in this study. Patients with diabetic nephropathy and pretransplant diabetes were excluded. Follow-up was for 2 years after the transplant. The variables studied were age, sex, body mass index, a family history of diabetes mellitus (DM), pretransplant steroid therapy, dyslipidemia, and hepatitis C virus infection. Twenty- three patients (15.3%) developed NODAT during the study period. The mean age of the patients who developed NODAT was 39 +/- 14 years, and the mean time to develop NODAT was 5.78 +/- 5.9 months. In the multivariate analysis, the risk factors for developing NODAT were a family history of DM (P = 0.01) and pretransplant steroid therapy (P = 0.01). The prevalence of NODAT in this study was 15.3%, which is in line with the reported literature from North Africa. However, it was significantly lower than the reported prevalence in African Americans.