The Prognostic Relevance of the Donor IL-6 Serum Level with Respect to the Postoperative Course of Cadaveric Kidney Grafts

In a retrospective study the postoperative courses of 100 consecutive kidney graft recipients (women 36, men 64) aged between 17 and 69 years were analyzed according to the beginning of graft function, frequency of rejections, occurrence of serious infections, duration of postoperative stay on the ward as well as serum creatinine level at discharge and were related to the serum IL-6 level of organ donors. Neither the creating of two large groups (donor IL-6: 31.6 ±19.6 versus 797 ±1709 pg/ml) nor of five smaller groups (donor IL-6: 0-50, 50.1-100, 100.1-200, 200.1-500, >500 pg/ml) reveals statistic significant differences of the postoperative courses. An additional analysis of data of so-called kidney pairs, that means the transplantation of both kidneys of one donor into two recipients in the same centre, showed without any doubt that the majority of kidney pairs (17 out of 23) experienced different postoperative courses with respect to the above mentioned parameters and did not depend on the height of donor IL-6 serum level differing between 8 pg/ml and 1071.2 pg/ml. Thus, the donor IL-6 level did not have any prognostic relevance with respect to the postoperative kidney graft fate.