Association of Early Kidney Allograft Failure with Preformed IgA Antibodies to β2-Glycoprotein I

Abstract

In the current immunosuppressive therapy era, vessel thrombosis is themost common cause of early graft loss after renal transplantation. The prevalence of IgA anti–b2-glycoprotein I antibodies (IgA-aB2GPI-ab) in patients on dialysis is elevated (.30%), and these antibodies correlate with mortality and cardiovascular morbidity. To evaluate the effect of IgA-aB2GPI-ab in patients with transplants, we followed all patients transplanted from2000 to 2002 in the Hospital 12 deOctubre prospectively for 10 years. Presence of IgAaB2GPI- ab in pretransplant serum was examined retrospectively. Of 269 patients, 89 patients were positive for IgA-aB2GPI-ab (33%; group 1), and the remaining patientswere negative (67%; group 2).Graft loss at 6months post-transplant was significantly higher in group 1 (10 of 89 versus 3 of 180 patients in group 2; P=0.002). Themost frequent cause of graft loss was thrombosis of the vessels, which was observed only in group 1 (8 of 10 versus 0 of 3 patients in group 2; P=0.04). Multivariate analysis showed that the presence of IgA-aB2GPI-ab was an independent risk factor for early graft loss (P=0.04) and delayed graft function (P=0.04). There were no significant differences regarding patient survival between the two groups. Graft survival was similar in both groups after 6 months. In conclusion, patients with pretransplant IgA-aB2GPIab have a high risk of early graft loss caused by thrombosis and a high risk of delayed graft function. Therefore, pretransplant IgA-aB2GPI-ab may have a detrimental effect on early clinical outcomes after renal transplantation.