Background: Renal transplant patients show a high incidence of anemia, which is often responsible for cardiovascular morbidity and graft rejection. Anemia reportedly impacts the health-related quality of life (HRQoL); however, only a limited number of related studies have been conducted on renal transplant recipients. In this study, we estimated the prevalence of anemia and its effects on QoL of renal transplant patients in Saudi Arabia.

Methods: Seventy-four patients were recruited in this study. They were asked to fill a self-reported EuroQoL instrument (EQ-5D-5L). We measured the hemoglobin levels (Hgb) of the patients to assess their anemia status. Anemia and severe anemia were defined as Hgb < 12 g/dL and Hgb < 10 g/dL, respectively.

Results: Of the 74 recruited patients, 53 patients (71.6%) were anemic. Around 33.7% patients were reported to be completely healthy, with a 5-digit of 11111. With respect to EQ-5D-5L, the responses of anemic and non-anemic patients did not differ significantly. However, the response to anxiety-related questions for patients belonging to severe and mild-to-moderate anemia groups differed significantly. The final multivariate logistic model analysis revealed that the gender of patient was significantly associated with incidence of anemia postoperatively [OR: 6.72, 95% CI: 1.7 - 25.6, P-value = 0.000; (25 males, 47.2%) vs. (28 females, 52.9%)]. The use of intravenous (IV) immunoglobulin in the induction phase was significantly associated with incidence of late anemia [P-value = 0.012].

Conclusions: Interestingly, our findings revealed a higher prevalence of anemia among the Saudi kidney patients compared to those of other nations. The incidence of anemia was shown to be significantly associated with renal function, female gender, and IV immunoglobulin use at the induction phase. Furthermore, multicentric prospective studies are warranted to elucidate other clinical factors that are associated with anemia and the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms.

Keywords: Anemia; post-transplant; quality of life; renal; Saudi