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.

Two years postconversion from a prograf-based regimen to a once-daily tacrolimus extended-release formulation in stable kidney transplant recipients.

Alloway R, Steinberg S, Khalil K, Gourishankar S, Miller J, Norman D, Hariharan S, Pirsch J, Matas A, Zaltzman J, Wisemandle K, Fitzsimmons W, First MR

Department of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, and California Institute of Renal Research, Sharp Memorial Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA.

Tacrolimus extended-release (XL) is a once-daily formulation recently developed to reduce the frequency of dosing for patients currently using the twice-a-day formulation of tacrolimus (TAC). As reported previously, 67 kidney transplant recipients were safely converted (1:1 mg basis, total daily dose) from TAC twice-a-day to XL once-daily in the morning and were maintained on an am dosing regimen of XL using the same therapeutic monitoring and patient care techniques currently employed with TAC. The 2-year postconversion patient (100%) and graft (98.5%) survival, incidence of biopsy-confirmed acute rejection (6.0%), incidence of multiple rejections (1.5%), and safety profile (posttransplant diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, infections, renal dysfunction, hepatic dysfunction, and malignancies) were consistent with or more favorable than those previously reported for TAC twice-a-day.

Published 25 June 2007 in Transplantation, 83(12): 1648-51.
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