Abstract Details

At present, the overall quality of life in transplant patients has improved; however, in the immediate period after surgery or in the long term follow up, some patients may develop a variety of complications.

Neurological complications such as neurotoxicity, central nervous system infections, stroke, and seizures might result from strong doses of immunosuppressants and surgical techniques. These complications may not be recognized at first, especially in patients in Intensive Care Units, where physical exams may be obscured by patient sedation. Nevertheless, identifying the proportion of patients who might develop neurological complications would help prompt diagnosis, prognosis and future evaluation of the transplant population.

Current literature suggests that about 10% of transplant patients may exhibit challenging neurological complications post-transplant surgery; but, the actual incidence might not be accurate. We aim to review the current data regarding neurological outcomes in transplant patients.

Following the Preferred Items for Systematic Reviews Guidelines, we searched PubMed and six other databases for observational studies reporting neurological outcomes in transplant patients. We included all English and Spanish-language studies. Four authors screened the studies for inclusion using Rayyan.

This review is partially complete. 2,099 studies were screened by title and abstract, 353 were included for full-text review. Four authors, working independently, will continue to evaluate the evidence of the studies and will draw conclusions using the GRADE system and the JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist. In cases of discrepancy, a third reviewer will intervene.

Partial results show that the most common neurological complications among patients undergoing organ transplant were encephalopathy, stroke, neurotoxicity, seizures, and primary central nervous system post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder. Reviewers will extract the information based on Cochrane using the Google forms tool. The statistical analysis will be conducted using Cochrane Review Manager.