The Impact of Morbid Obesity on Hospital Length of Stay in Kidney Transplant Recipients

database. Subjects:The study sample consistedof 42,787 morbidly obese (body mass index 35-40 kg/m 2 ) andnormal weight (body mass index 18.5-24.9 kg/m 2 ) who underwent primary kidney-only transplantation between 2000 and 2008. Main Outcome Measures: Morbidly obese and normal-weight subgroups were crudely evaluated for prolonged LOS (.7 days). Logistic regression modeling compared LOS in morbidly obese and normal-weight subgroups with varying characteristics and determined predictors of prolonged LOS. Results: All morbidly obese subgroups had significantly higher crude rates of prolonged LOS (P , .05). However, no significant differencesinprolonged LOS wereseenbetween anyofthemorbidlyobese ornormal-weight subgroupsinmultivariate analysis.Morbid obesity was an independent predictor of prolonged LOS (P , .001) but not a stronger predictor than that of being African American, having coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus, or peripheral vascular disease, being 50 to 80 years of age, having a previous transplant or poor functional status. Receiving a deceased-donor transplant and being dialysis dependent .4 years were significantly better predictors of prolonged LOS compared with morbid obesity (P , .05). Conclusions:Some morbidly obese populations have LOS rates that are not significantly different than many commonly transplanted normal weight populations, andtheimpact morbid obesity hasonLOS isnot different than many otherfactors often seeninkidneytransplant recipients; therefore, morbid obesity alone should not be a financial consideration in kidney transplant.