BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Transplant.
Sec. Transplantation Immunology
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frtra.2025.1623096
Elective Semaglutide prescription enabled waitlisting and transplantation of otherwise ineligible obese renal transplant candidates
Provisionally accepted
Emilie Navaux1,2
Caroline La3,4
Sylvain Dufour3,4Vincent Huberty4,5Youssef Mourabit6,7Thomas Caes4,8
Nikolaos Koliakos4,9Dimitri Mikhalski4,9Alain Le Moine3,4
Concetta Catalano3,4*- 1Departement of Nephrology, La Louviere, Belgium
- 2Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Tivoli, La Louvière, Belgium
- 3Department of Nephrology, Dialysis and Renal Transplantation, Hôpital Erasme, Brussels, Belgium
- 4Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
- 5Department of gastroenterology Hôpital Erasme, Brussels, Belgium
- 6Department of gastroenterology, Charleroi, Belgium
- 7Marie Curie Civil Hospital, Charleroi, Belgium
- 8Department of Urology Hôpital Erasme, Bruxelles, Belgium
- 9Department of general surgery Hôpital Erasme, Brussels, Belgium
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Although transplantation remains the treatment of choice for end-stage renal disease, patients suffering from severe obesity are too often unlisted for this reason. Pre-transplant bariatric surgery is not free of risk and the use of 'Glucagon Like Peptide-1'analogues in these patients is limited. Our study aims to determine whether semaglutide administration enabled waitlisting and transplantation of otherwise ineligible obese renal transplant candidates. Between 01/01/2021 and 10/30/2023, patients rejected from renal transplantation because of obesity received pre-transplant subcutaneous semaglutide up to 1 mg/week. Of the 23 patients included, initial mean body weight, BMI and waist circumference were 102,9 Kg, 35.6 and 119,5 cm respectively. After a median of 12,2 months on semaglutide, these parameters decreased by 11,4 Kg (p = <0.001), 3.9 points (p = < 0.001) and 9,6 cm (p= < 0.001) respectively. 56.5% of patients initially rejected for transplantation were listed within a median of 5,4 months, and 61.5% of them were transplanted. No major side effects were reported. In summary semaglutide administration enabled waitlisting and transplantation of otherwise ineligible obese renal transplant candidates. This treatment should be an integral part of the pre-transplant management of obesity.
Keywords: Obesity, Kidney Transplantation, Semaglutide, diabetes, Dialysis
Received: 05 May 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Navaux, La, Dufour, Huberty, Mourabit, Caes, Koliakos, Mikhalski, Le Moine and Catalano. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Concetta Catalano, Department of Nephrology, Dialysis and Renal Transplantation, Hôpital Erasme, Brussels, Belgium
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