Renal transplant in human immunodeficiency virus positive dialysis patients; report of four cases in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa and review of literature

Abstract

Quality of life and life span have considerably increased in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients over the past years owing to the highly effective antiretroviral therapy. Consequently, the number of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) has increased in dialysis centers. Several teams in the United States as well as in Europe have therefore proposed renal transplantation to this group of patients with encouraging results. From March 2015 to February 2016, four kidney transplantations have been conducted in the very first kidney transplantation program ever in French speaking black Africa. Three male and one female with a mean age of 50.75 years have been transplanted. One of them was HIV-2 positive. Before kidney transplantation, patients have exhibited diverse highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimen. They all have undetectable viremia and the mean value of the CD4 count was 454.5 cells/µL. Raltegravir, an integrase inhibitor, has systematically been added to the baseline HAART therapy at least 30 days before transplantation. Immunosuppression comprised basiliximab as induction therapy, tacrolimus, sodium mycophenolate and steroids. After a mean time of six months, all the patients are alive with a mean serum creatinine of 1.425±0.263mg/dl, and a mean proteinuria of 0.55±0.29 g/d. We present these results in full, and discuss them according to data retrieved from the literature. The conditions of access of human immunodeficiency virus positive patients to renal transplantation, the immunosuppression and the antiretroviral regimen, graft and patient survival have all been discussed accordingly.