Effect of pre-transplantation use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker in kidney transplant recipients—propensity score-matched analysis

Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ACEi/ARBs) can cause acute kidney injury under dehydratation or in hemodynamically unstable conditions. Regarding kidney transplantation (KT), the risk of using ACEi/ARBs before surgery is not well established. Therefore, we evaluated the clinical outcomes to determine the effect of preoperative use of ACEi/ARBs on KT. We retrospectively collected 1187 patients who received living-donor KT between January 2017 and December 2021. We conducted a propensity score-matched analysis between the ACEi/ARB(+) and ACEi/ARB(–) groups and evaluated the effects of ACEi/ARBs on delayed graft function, post-KT renal function, hyperkalemia events, rejection, and graft survival. The ACEi/ARB(+) group showed a similar incidence of delayed graft function as the ACEi/ARB(–) group (1.8