Atherosclerotic risk factors in pediatric renal transplant recipients and chronic renal failure patients

It is known that cardiovascular reasons have important effect on the mortality of uremic children (18). Homocysteine, ADMA, Hs-CRP and carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) are nearly defined atherosclerotic risk factors for normal population and also uremic subjects (39, 61, 62, 84).In this study homocysteine, ADMA, Hs-CRP and CIMT were studied on pediatric chronic renal failure (CRF) patients with renal transplantation patients and compared with healthy cases. Albumin was found to be significantly low at CRF patients while the levels of ADMA, homocysteine, Hs-CRP, ferritin, triglyceride , VLDL, apolipoprotein B and CIMT were found to be significantly high compared to the healthy cases. Similarly in transplantation recipients, albumin was found to be significantly lower while CIMT, homocysteine, VLDL and triglyceride were found significantly higher compared to healthy cases. There were a decrease in the levels of ADMA, ferritin and an increase in the level of albumin in renal transplantation patients compared to the CRF patients. At CRF patients, there were positive correlations beetween triglyceride, cholesterol and CIMT while negative correlations triglyceride, cholesterol and albumin. In the transplantation group, there were positive correlations between homocysteine and ADMA; homocysteine and creatinine; negative correlations between Hs-CRP, ferritin and albumin as well as HDL and uric acid.In conclusion, we suggest that cardiovascular morbidity will decrease by reducing the levels of these risk factors after succesful renal transplantation and especially ADMA, ferritin and albumin levels will be important in following up atherosclerosis.