Kidney Transplant Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Kidney Transplant, including details on risks, prognosis, procedure, surgery, organ donation.

Preliminary results with early corticosteroid withdrawal in African American renal allograft recipients.

Gruber SA, West MS, Sillix DH, El-Amm JM, Garnick J, Morawski K, Haririan A

Section of Transplant Surgery, Department of Surgery, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI, USA. sgruber@dmc.org

BACKGROUND: There is a paucity of data regarding the use of steroid-avoidance immunosuppression (SAI) in African American (AA) renal allograft recipients, traditionally considered a high-risk subgroup of patients with higher reported rates of acute rejection and graft loss. METHODS: We compared the outcomes of 27 AA renal allograft recipients receiving SAI (SA group; mean follow-up period, 12 +/- 3 mo) with those of 20 patients receiving a steroid taper (ST group; 24 +/- 11 mo). In both groups, thymoglobulin was used for induction, and mycophenolate mofetil and tacrolimus were used for maintenance. Four doses of methylprednisolone were given on days 0 to 3. In the SA group no further steroids were given, whereas in the ST group a prednisone taper was continued thereafter. RESULTS: ST patients were more likely to have current panel reactive antibody titers greater than 10%, undergo retransplantation, and receive more doses of thymoglobulin. There were no significant differences between the SA and ST groups with regard to patient survival (96% vs 95%), graft survival (96% vs 90%), acute rejection (11% vs 14%), cytomegalovirus infection (7% vs 10%), posttransplant diabetes mellitus (11% vs 24%), or mean serum creatinine concentration at 6 months (1.6 vs 1.5 mg/dL), respectively, with a trend toward less percent weight gain in SA patients at 6 months (5% vs 11%, P = .06). CONCLUSIONS: SAI can produce excellent short-term results in AA kidney transplant patients when compared with a conventional ST protocol. Our results will need to be verified in larger numbers of patients with longer follow-up evaluation.

Published 4 November 2005 in Surgery, 138(4): 772-8; discussion 778-9.
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