Background: There is scarce information regarding the role of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in the development of infectious complications after kidney transplantation (KT).
Methods: We prospectively analyzed all KT recipients included in the Spanish Network for the Research of Infection in Transplantation cohort from September 2003 to February 2005 with a posttransplant follow-up of 3 years and compared the incidence of both overall and specific infections according to the pretransplant anti-HCV antibody status.
Results: Of 1302 analyzed recipients, 105 (8.1%) were anti-HCV positive. These patients presented a higher rate of previous transplant (P<0.001), had a lower donor age (P=0.055), higher transfusion requirements (P=0.037), and more frequently received induction therapy with antithymocyte antibodies (P=0.005). We found no differences between anti-HCV-positive and -negative recipients in the overall incidence rate of infection (0.82 vs. 0.74 episodes per 1000 transplant-days, respectively). Nevertheless, anti-HCV-positive recipients had a higher cumulative incidence of bloodstream (P=0.01) and upper urinary tract infections (P=0.037). Anti-HCV status emerged by logistic regression as an independent risk factor only for bloodstream infection (odds ratio, 3.14; 95% confidence interval, 1.19-8.24; P=0.020). Anti-HCV-positive recipients also experimented a higher rate of recurrent acute rejection (P=0.045) and retransplantation (P=0.017), with no differences in overall mortality.
Conclusions: According to the results of the Spanish Network for the Research of Infection in Transplantation cohort, the incidence of some potentially severe posttransplant infections may be increased in anti-HCV-positive KT recipients.