Body Fat Area as a Predictive Marker of New-Onset Diabetes Mellitus After Kidney Transplantation.

BACKGROUND

New-onset diabetes after kidney transplantation (NODAT) adversely affects patient survival. Excessive fat accumulation is generally considered a risk factor of NODAT. Body mass index (BMI) and abdominal circumference (AC) are frequently used to assess fat accumulation but cannot directly measure it. This study measured body fat area (BFA) via computed tomography and aimed to clarify whether preoperative BFA can predict the development of NODAT more accurately than BMI and AC.

METHODS

This retrospective study included 62 patients without diabetes mellitus who received living-donor kidney transplantation at our institute between July 2005 and April 2016. We investigated the association between preoperative BMI, AC, and BFA and the development of NODAT.

RESULTS

Eight patients (12.9%) developed NODAT during a mean follow-up period of 78.1 months. The preoperative BMI, AC, and BFA were markedly higher in NODAT patients than in patients without NODAT (P = .05, P = .02, P < .01, respectively). Correlation analyses revealed that BFA had a strong relationship with BMI (r = 0.68, P < .01) and AC (r = 0.77, P < .01). Receiver operating characteristic curve analyses demonstrated that BFA, compared to BMI and AC, had considerable predictive accuracy for the development of NODAT, with an area under the curve of 0.803 (sensitivity 75%, specificity 87%).

CONCLUSIONS

Preoperative BFA could be a predictive marker of NODAT in renal graft recipients. Our findings underline the importance of routine preoperative BFA measurements in clinical practice.