Obesity in kidney transplantation

Abstract

The prevalence of obesity among patients with chronic kidney disease continues to increase as a reflection of the trend observed in the general population. Factors affecting the access to the waiting list and the transplantability of this specific population will be analysed. From observational studies, kidney transplantation in obese patients carries an increased risk of surgical complications compared to the nonobese population; therefore, many centres have been reluctant to proceed with transplantation, despite this treatment modality confers a survival advantage over dialysis. As a consequence, obese patients continue to face decreased access to the waiting list, with a lower likelihood of being transplanted and higher waiting times when compared to the nonobese candidates. In this review will be described the current strategies for treatment of obesity in different settings (pretransplant, at transplant and post-transplant). Obesity represents a risk factor for surgical complications but not a contraindication for kidney transplantation; outcomes could be greatly improved with its multidisciplinary and multimodal treatment. The modern technology with minimally invasive techniques, mainly using robotic platform, allows a reduction in the surgical complications rate, with graft and patient survival rates comparable to the nonobese counterpart.