Outcomes of Kidney Allograft and Recipient Survival After Liver Transplantation by Induction Type in the United States

There are several choices for induction immunosuppression in kidney‐after‐liver transplantation. We used the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients database. We assessed all kidney‐after‐liver transplant recipients in the United States between 1/1/2000 and 7/31/2017 to study kidney graft and patient outcomes by induction type. We only included patients discharged on tacrolimus and mycophenolate with or without steroids and had a negative crossmatch before kidney engraftment. We grouped recipients by kidney induction type into the following 3 groups: depletional (n = 550), nondepletional (n = 434), and no antibody induction (n = 144). We studied patient and kidney allograft survival using Cox proportional hazard regression, with transplant center included as a random effect. Models were adjusted for liver induction regimen, recipient and donor age, sex, human leukocyte antigen mismatches, payor type, living donor kidney transplantation, dialysis status, time from liver engraftment, hepatitis C virus status, and the presence of diabetes mellitus at time of kidney transplantation and transplantation year. The 6‐month and 1‐year rejection rates did not differ between groups. Compared with no induction, neither depletional nor nondepletional induction was associated with an improved recipient or graft survival in the multivariable models. Depletional induction at the time of liver transplantation was associated with worse patient survival after kidney transplantation (hazard ratio [HR], 1.7; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.09‐2.67; P = 0.02). Living donor kidney transplantation was associated with a 48.1% improved graft survival (HR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.33‐0.82; P = 0.00). In conclusion, in the settings of a negative cross‐match and maintenance with tacrolimus and mycophenolate, induction use was not associated with a patient or graft survival benefit in kidney‐after‐liver transplantations.