Kidney transplantation is the gold-standard treatment for many patients with end-stage renal disease. Renal transplant recipients (RTRs) remain at an increased risk of fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular (CV) events compared to the general population, although rates are lower than those patients on maintenance haemodialysis. Death with a functioning graft is most commonly due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and therefore this remains an important therapeutic target to prevent graft failure. Conventional CV risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension and renal dysfunction remain a major influence on CVD in RTRs. However it is now recognised that the morbidity and mortality from CVD are not entirely accounted for by these traditional risk-factors. Immunosuppression medications exert a deleterious effect on many of these well-recognised contributors to CVD and are known to exacerbate the probability of developing diabetes, graft dysfunction and hypertension which can all lead on to CVD. Non-traditional CV risk factors such as inflammation and anaemia have been strongly linked to increased CV events in RTRs and should be considered alongside those which are classified as conventional. This review summarises what is known about risk-factors for CVD in RTRs and how, through identification of those which are modifiable, outcomes can be improved. The overall CV risk in RTRs is likely to be multifactorial and a complex interaction between the multiple traditional and non-traditional factors; further studies are required to determine how these may be modified to enhance survival and quality of life in this unique population.
Keywords: Atherosclerosis; Cardiovascular disease; Diabetes mellitus; Immunosuppression; Kidney transplantation.