Ultrasound saves lives of renal transplant patients

Stress echocardiography can accurately predict the onset of cardiovascular disease in patients waiting for kidney transplants.

Principal investigator Dr. Cristina Tita, a cardiologist at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and colleagues retrospectively reviewed data from 149 consecutive patients, split nearly evenly between women and men; 65% of patients were African American. Patients underwent stress echocardiography before and after transplantation and were followed for nearly three years.

The investigators found that patients with abnormal pre- and post-transplant stress echocardiograms had a 30% chance of having a major cardiac event in the first year after surgery compared with a 3% chance for those with a negative scan. They reported their findings in June at the American Society of Echocardiography meeting.