Hillary Ndemera and Busisiwe Bhengu
Background: Progress has been made in the multifactorial field of kidney transplantation over the last two decades. However, the survival of kidney allografts continues to be short for most recipients due to several factors that contribute to kidney allograft loss. This presents with detrimental effects on the outcome of post kidney transplant patients. Objectives: The objective of the review is to highlight factors contributing to kidney allograft loss and associated consequences among post kidney transplant patients. Methods: The following databases provided literature through online search: CINAHL, EBSCO, Google Scholar, PubMed and grey search. This study included English written articles that are published between 2001 and 2017 with the full text identified using the keywords: Contributing factors to graft loss, associated consequences of graft loss, Kidney transplantation, kidney rejection, kidney allograft loss, Transplant rejection, post kidney, transplantation patients. Results: The identified factors contributing to kidney allograft loss are patient related, donor related, physiological related, therapy related and socioeconomic factors. The identified consequences include Back to Dialysis, High Mortality Rate, Re-transplantation, Lower Quality of Life and Higher Health Care Expenditure. Conclusion: Contributing factors to kidney allograft loss are multifactorial. Therefore, identification of these factors and associated consequences related to kidney allograft loss will assist in identifying gaps in transplant management and consequently improve on long-term graft survival.
