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.

Successful outcome of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in a renal transplant patient.

Crowder CD, Gyure KA, Drachenberg CB, Werner J, Morales RE, Hirsch HH, Ramos E

Department of Pathology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

We report the case of a 47-year-old man who developed progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) after receiving immuno-suppressive therapy for renal transplantation. The patient presented with a focal seizure and cognitive changes 5 months post-transplantation. He was found to have enhancing lesions in the parietal lobe and typical findings of PML in a brain biopsy. Immunosuppression was discontinued and the neurological symptoms gradually resolved over a period of 4 weeks. The patient is free of any neurological symptoms 36 months after the diagnosis of PML and imaging studies demonstrate resolution of the PML lesions. The patient returned to hemodialysis 3 months after immunosuppression was discontinued. We also present a review of the literature on PML in renal transplant recipients.

Published 8 April 2005 in Am J Transplant, 5(5): 1151-8.
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