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Monitoring specific underlying causes of death in solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients is important in order to identify emerging trends and health challenges. This retrospective cohort study includes all SOT recipients transplanted at Rigshospitalet between January 1st, 2010 and December 31st, 2019. The underlying cause of death was determined using the newly developed Classification of Death Causes after Transplantation (CLASS) method. Cox regression analyses assessed risk factors for all-cause and cause-specific mortality. Of the 1774 SOT recipients included, 299 patients died during a total of 7511 person-years of follow-up (PYFU) with cancer (N = 57, 19%), graft rejection (N = 55, 18%) and infections (N = 52, 17%) being the most frequent causes of death. We observed a lower risk of all-cause death with increasing transplant calendar year (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.86–0.96 per 1-year increase), alongside death from graft rejection (HR 0.84 per year, 95% CI 0.74–0.95) and death from infections (HR 0.86 per year, 95% CI 0.77–0.97). Further, there was a trend towards lower cumulative incidence of death from cardiovascular disease, graft failure and cancer in more recent years, while death from other organ specific and non-organ specific causes did not decrease. All-cause mortality among SOT recipients has decreased over the past decade, mainly due to a decrease in graft rejection- and infection-related deaths. Conversely, deaths from a broad range of other causes have remained unchanged, suggesting that cause of death among SOT recipients is increasingly diverse and warrants a multidisciplinary effort and attention in the future.

Calcemia is not routinely determined among people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In people living with HIV, the most frequent electrolyte disturbance is hyponatremia and since symptoms of hypocalcemia often are unspecific, calcium is typically measured with some delay. Hypocalcemia in people living with HIV is mainly due to indirect causes such as vitamin D deficiency, renal failure, or drug related. However, in rare cases direct viral involvement of the parathyroid glands has been reported. We present a case of a 67-year-old male living with HIV who presented at an emergency department with symptomatic severe hypocalcemia, without any previous history of neck surgery, radiation therapy or large infections in the head and neck area. At the time of admission serum concentrations were for ionized calcium 0.98 mmol/L (ref. 1.18-1.32 mmol/L) and PTH 1.3 mmol/L (ref. 2.0-8.5 pmol/L). Vitamin D status was sufficient with 25OHD at 73 nmol/L to 112 nmol/L (ref. 60-160 nmol/L) from 2016 through 2019. The patient was diagnosed with primary hypoparathyroidism and was treated with Alphacalcidol 0,5 mu g x 1/daily, calcium 500 mg x 4 the first day followed by 400 mg x 2 and magnesium 360 mg x 3, which induced rapid clinical recovery with dissolvement of muscular pain and biochemical improvement. This case study suggests that further studies are needed to investigate the added value of routine monitoring for hypocalcemia as part of clinical follow-up of people living with HIV.

Correct classification of death causes is an important component of transplant trials.We aimed to develop and validate a system to classify causes of death in hematopoietic stem cell (HSCT) and solid organ (SOT) transplant recipients.Case record forms (CRF) of fatal cases were completed, including investigator-designated cause of death. Deaths occurring in 2010 to 2013 were used for derivation; and were validated by deaths occurring in 2013 to 2015. Underlying cause of death (referred to as recorded underlying cause) was determined through a central adjudication process involving 2 external reviewers, and subsequently compared with the Danish National Death Cause Registry.Three hundred eighty-eight recipients died 2010 to 2015 (196 [51%] SOT and 192 [49%] HSCT). The main recorded underlying causes of death among SOT and HSCT were classified as cancer (20%, 48%), graft rejection/failure/graft-versus-host-disease (35%, 28%), and infections (20%, 11%). Kappa between the investigator-designated and the recorded underlying cause of death was 0.74 (95% CI 0.69-0.80) in derivation and comparable in the validation cohort. Death causes were concordant with the Danish National Death Cause Registry in 37.2% (95% CI 31.5-42.9) and 38.4% (95% CI 28.8-48.0) in the derivation and validation cohorts, respectively.We developed and validated a method to systematically and reliably classify the underlying cause of death among transplant recipients. There was a high degree of discordance between this classification and that in the Danish National Death Cause Registry.