Kidney transplantation in Afghan refugees residing in Iran: The first report of survival analysis

Background: We report, for the first time, the data on the outcome of kidney transplantation activities in the Afghan population from Iran. Material/Method: We extracted the demographic, clinical and the outcome related data of all Afghan kidney transplanted patients, from 1998 to April 2006, from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Dialysis and Transplant Patients Association (DATPA) databases. Results: During this period 103 Afghan patients (70.9% male, 29.1% female) underwent renal transplantation in Iran. The mean age at transplantation was 32.7 years. The kidney sources were living unrelated donors (LURD) in 82.5%, living related donors (LRD) in 15.5% and cadaver in 2% patients. The graft and patient survival rates for 1, 3 and 5 years were 97 and 98, 86 and 95, 73 and 95 percent, respectively. Conclusions: Both graft and patient survival rates were good and comparable to those reported previously in Iranian patients.