Predicting delayed graft function after adult kidney transplantation procedure through donor-recipient demographic-anthropometric characteristics analysis: Extensive systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

Purpose: Kidney transplantation procedures offer dialysis-free lifestyle, though, a possible requirement to undergo dialysis within the first postoperative week due to “acute kidney injury”-like symptoms may define delayed graft function (DGF). We aim to determine the predicting factors of DGF from basic demographic-anthropometric characteristics of either the donor or the recipient populations. Materials and methods: We included original cohorts from scientific databases from the last decade, comparing demographic-anthropometric factors such as age, gender, and body mass index (BMI) in adult populations, regardless of the main objective of the respective studies. The registry-based studies were excluded for their association with database-only investigations and remarkably larger datasets. The results will be presented in mean difference (MD) and odds ratio (OR) in a 95% confidence interval (CI) according to our specific design for each outcome. Results: A total of 50 studies comprised of ±27,000 individuals from donor and recipient sides were included. We observe that the DGF recipients or the donors have higher MD of age by 2.07 (1.24, 2.91) and 5.46 (4.00, 6.92) years, respectively (both P < 0.05). Male recipients and donors also share the statistical significance in higher risk of DGF occurrence by 1.19 (1.07, 1.32) and 1.30 (1.11, 1.52) in OR. Lastly, recipients with DGF also possessed significantly higher BMI mean of 1.08 (0.76, 1.41) kg/m 2 , followed by its donor with similar findings (0.81 [0.22, 1.40] kg/m 2 ). Conclusion: Being the first review to assess the clinical questions, our investigations confirmed predicting factors of DGF after kidney transplantation, for example, older age, male gender, and higher BMI.