Hyperglycemia and (Pre)Diabetes in Pediatric Renal and Liver Transplantation.

BACKGROUND/AIM: Solid organ transplantation (SOT) is therapeutic choice for patient in end-stage renal or liver disease. After transplant, immunosuppressive therapy is necessary to avoid rejection and their use has enabled SOT and considerably improved graft survival and quality of life. However, they are also associated with side effects, including glycemic abnormalities. Most complications observed with immunosuppressants are the presence of hyperglycemia which in the long term may increase the probabilities to develop persistent diabetes. Diabetes affects an ill-defined proportion of transplanted patients (2 to 53%) and in the context of adult liver and renal transplant, it is nonetheless common, and represents approximately 20%. However, the incidence of transient hyperglycemia and the probabilities to develop overt diabetes in pediatric liver and renal transplantation remains unknow, while it is known that both is associated with an unfavorable prognosis (i.e., mortality, graft rejection, increased hospital stay) and an increased cardiovascular event in the long term. Moreover, associated risk factors such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, sedentary lifestyle, or even older age are well known for adult transplant but do not make sense for children transplanted at a very young age. In addition, the use of a non-relevant measure such as fasting blood glucose and a late-onset diabetes marker like HbA1C levels do not allow the early detection of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) a signal alarm of a prediabetes state. Prediabetes is considered as an intermediate state between normal glucose homeostasis and overt diabetes and represents a major health problem because it is estimated in 2015 that 70% of the prediabetic American citizens (33,5%) will develop diabetes in the period. However, it is rarely sought in pediatric transplantation while the early detection and correction of hyperglycemia was shown to significantly decrease both cardiovascular and diabetes risk. It is therefore essential to develop knowledge on the evolution of glucose dysregulation after a renal and liver transplantation with the implementation of other markers of hyperglycemia or IGT. Then the purpose of the DIABGRAFT study was to assess the incidence and associated risk factors of developing hyperglycemia in renal and liver transplanted children to anticipate it and analyze their glycemic profile during the most critical moment to characterize hyperglycemia, IGT and diabetes.

METHODS: In collaboration with the Pediatric Gastroenterology and Specialized Pediatrics Services (Endocrinology and Nephrology Units) of Cliniques universitaires Saint Luc (CUSL) in Belgium (Brussels), this clinical study will be organized as a retrospective and a prospective trial.

The study included liver and renal transplanted pediatric patients (<18 years of age) at CUSL. Were excluded patients with a history of diabetes (i.e., type 1, type 2, neonatal or monogenic), pancreatitis, Down Syndrome, cystic fibrosis, another transplantation (cardiac, renal) only for liver transplanted patients, patients deceased shortly after transplantation, and patients with incomplete medical record.

Its retrospective part (rDIABGRAFT) consisted of collecting data of pediatric patients who benefited from a liver transplant performed at CUSL between April 2012 and April 2019, or that benefited from a renal transplant in our center between April 2005 and April 2019.

The prospective part (pDIABGRAFT) of the study consisted of a longitudinal glycemic evaluation of renal and liver transplanted children in CUSL between 2020 and 2022 with the use of dynamic endocrine testing. Informed consents were collected from parents and from all children over six years of age.