Incidence of Recurrent Urinary Tract Infection after Renal Transplantation

Background: The pathologies classified as urinary tract infections (UTI) can have a deleterious effect on patients who have undergone a renal transplantation. Often recurrent UTIs will occur, leading to high morbidity, failure of the grafting process overall and even death. The study presented here seeks to expand the knowledge of recurrent UTIs in the context of renal transplantation, what risks recurrent UTIs pose to transplant patients and evaluate possible treatments. Methods: Renal transplantations were performed on 94 patients. For six months post-surgery the patients were evaluated for the presence of recurrent UTIs. The criteria for determining a patient as having a UTI was given as finding more than 103 and 105 pure colonies within one ml of urine for asymptomatic and symptomatic patients, respectively. The criteria of recurrent UTI was defined as two or more conclusive UTIs within the first six months after the surgery or three more within a year after renal transplantation. Results: Of the 94 hospitalized patients, 29 UTIs were diagnosed (30.8%). The majority of diagnosed UTIs were in female patients (11.15, 73.3% vs.4.15, 26.7%; p-value = 0.003). Those patients with diabetes mellitus correlated with a better chance of having a UTI (p-value = 0.019; CI = 1.2-12.2). The incidence rate of UTI was 51.7%, female predominant 73.3%. No other pathologies were shown to affect the chance of developing recurrent UTIs. Typically Escherichia coli was the bacterium isolated from urine cultures (48.3%) from those who developed recurrent UTI. The isolates tended to possess resistance to TMP / SMX and piperacillin but were susceptible to imipenem. Conclusion: Recurrent UTIs in renal transplant patients can be mitigated with proper identification of risk factors.