Thymoglobulin reverses refractory acute rejection in kidney transplant recipients.
ASN 30th Annual Meeting, San Antonio
J Am Soc Nephrol (Sep) 8:704A 1997
Thymoglobulin reverses refractory acute rejection in kidney transplant recipients. Thymoglobulin is a pasteurized rabbit anti-human thymocyte globulin. This was an uncontrolled study using thymoglobulin in kidney transplant recipients (both cadaveric and live related) and a kidney-pancreas recipient. Patients had biopsy proven rejection that was refractory to treatment with steroids and one course of either ATG or OKT3. The thymoglobulin was started an average of 187 days after transplant with an average dose of 1.42 mg/kg/day for an average of 9 doses. Average creatinine was 4.6 mg/dl pretreatment and 3.9 mg/dl post treatment. Of the nineteen patients 13 patients responded to therapy. The responders had a significantly lower pre- treatment creatinine. Five grafts were lost and one patient died from PTLD thought to be present in the allograft prior to treatment with thymoglobulin. Two patients have a creatinine greater than 5mg/dl. Complications include leukopenia (9 patients), thombocytopenia (1 patient), fever (6 patients) and infection (3 patients).
Comment: This is an uncontrolled study of the use of thymoglobulin in refractory acute rejection. The dose of thymoglobulin and duration of therapy varied during the study and there is no correlation made with the dose and either success of treatment or side effects. This provides a starting point for further studies of thymoglobulin in refractory acute rejection. (Rosemary Ouseph, M.D., University of Louisville, KY)
To go back use the BACK button on your browser. Otherwise click on the desired link to this article below:
ASN 30th Annual Meeting, San Antonio
Transplant : Transplantation
ARF etiology : Cyclosporine, ARF in transplant patients