Hemorheological changes in patients with living-donor renal transplantation

Living-donor renal transplantation is the preferred treatment for patients with end stage renal disease since it affords earlier transplantation and better graft for long term survival. The aim of the present study was to explore the hemorheological changes in patients undergone living-donor renal transplantation. We investigated the dynamic changes in the hemorheological properties of blood taken from the patients before renal transplantation and at 1 week, 2 week, 3 week and >1 month after the operation. As compared with pre-operation, the whole blood viscosity at different shear rates decreased significantly; the erythrocyte aggregation index decreased; the erythrocyte deformation index (DI) and integrated deformation index (IDI) had a remarkable improvement; the erythrocyte electrophoresis rate was rasied. We also found that the osmotic fragility of RBCs at 145 mOsm/kg was greatly decreased after renal transplantation. Importantly, the ratio of erythrocyte membrane protein 4.1a to 4.1b decreased, which may explain the changes in DI, IDI, and osmotic fragility. Our results suggest that these hemorheological changes may greatly improve the organ microcirculation, which would play a critical role in reduce the ischemia-reperfusion injury in the graft.