Background For the renal transplant recipients, anemia is one of the common complications and becomes a major medical issue before transplantation. Haemoglobin (Hb) is used as a prognostic indicator, although the optimal pre-transplantation Hb concentration associated with positive prognosis is still controversial. The aim of this study was to detect the optimal Hb concentration on predicting the graft survival and function.Methods A retrospective cohort study was conducted by reviewing the medical records of the patients who received renal transplantations at our center from January 2004 to June 2008. Patients were divided into two groups: high Hb group (＞100 g/L, n=79) and low Hb group (＜100 g/L, n=63). There was no significant difference between the two groups regarding sex, age, blood type and tissue types. Renal function among the two groups was measured and compared.Panel reacting antigens (PRA) of all the recipients were negative. The effect of preoperative hemoglobin concentration on the postoperative renal function recovery in both groups was further analyzed.Results A total of 14 acute rejection episodes occurred, including 5 patients in the high Hb group (7.9%) and 9 in the low Hb group (11.4%, P ＞0.05). The serum creatinine level at one-year post-transplantation of the low Hb group was significantly higher than that of the high Hb group ((117.8±36.3) μmol/L vs. (103.1±35.5) μmol/L, P ＜0.05). For one-year actuarial patient and graft survival, incidence of delayed graft function (DGF), serum creatinine concentrations at 1, 3, 6 months post-transplantation, the incidence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, post-transplantation anemia (PTA) and post-transplantation diabetes mellitus (PTDM) of both groups, there were no statistically significant differences.Conclusion Pre-transplantation Hb concentration has significant effect on one-year creatinine concentration, but can not significantly affect acute rejection episodes, DGF, PTA, CMV infection and PTDM.