Introduction: The presence of cardiovascular (CV) risk factors or established CV disease before transplantation is associated with increased adverse events in both renal and liver transplant recipients (1, 2). Studies comparing pretranstplant CV status and CV outcomes of those two population groups are generally lacking. Therefore, we compared those two groups according to pretransplant CV risk status, echocardiographic abnormalities and established CV disease. Differences in short-term and long term adverse cardiac events were further studied.

Patients and Methods: We consecutively enrolled 99 renal and 220 liver patients transplanted at Merkur University Hospital, Zagreb. Follow up period was up to 27 months. The data were collected from institutional computer system. Major adverse cardiac events (MACE) during follow up were defined as death, myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke.

Results: Renal transplant recipients were younger (54.7 vs 59.3 years; p=0.014) and showed higher prevalence of hypertension (81.6% vs 52.6%; p<0.001) and hyperlipidemia (67.5% vs 43.8%; p<0.001). Echocardiographic parameters revealed significantly reduced diastolic function (p=0.035) in renal patients. Liver patients had more tricuspid valve regurgitation (76.1% vs 53.6%; p=0.04). Renal recipients had higher prevalence of previous MI (7.9% vs 3.1%; p=0.008), percutaneous coronary intervention (9.6% vs 1.8; p<0.001) and peripheral artery disease (21.9% vs 6.2; p<0.001). No differences in MACE, when renal patients were compared to liver patients, was found up to 30 days (4.2% vs 10.9%; p=0.20) and beyond 30 days (5.4% vs 8.1%; p=0.31) following transplantation.

Conclusion: Renal and liver transplant recipients differ significantly in pretransplant presence of CV risk factors, echocardiographic parameters and established CV disease. Yet, we could not find any differences in both early and late MACE in those two groups.