Successful withdrawal of drug after family kidney transplant
Immunosuppressive drugs can be largely withdrawn after kidney transplantation from an HLA-identical sibling donor, according to researchers from the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam showed in a study funded by the Dutch Kidney Foundation (DKF).
Project leader Dr. Nicole van Besouw remarked that during a study of 29 patients, azathioprine and mycophenolate mofetil were withdrawn completely in 27 patients to leave only a low dose of steroids and there was no acute rejection. In four of the patients, there was a return of underlying renal disease but that was no abnormality with the group that continued immunosuppression.
From Sciencedaily.com:
“Further, we found that the dendritic cells had shifted to more mature types after medication withdrawal. It may be that the drugs are impeding the dendritic cell maturation process.’ Dendritic cells are specialized in presenting foreign material to reactive immune cells. This way they play an important role in setting off immune reactions against germs and also transplant rejection.
Dr. van Besouw: ‘Withdrawal of immunosuppressive drugs is important to improve quality of life. We need more and larger clinical trials to better investigate withdrawal and to find reliable biomarkers for predicting rejection risks.’
It was remarked that there were some changes in the immune reactions after the withdrawal and the numbers of interleukin-10 producing cells increased significantly after stopping azathioprine or mycophenolate mofetil.
Tags: azathioprine, immunosuppression, immunosuppressive drugs, mycophenolate mofetil, Steroids
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