Reduced organ rejection and enhanced benefits with immunosuppressive combination for heart transplants
by admin ~ January 8th, 2010.
One particular combination using tacrolimus (TAC or PrografÒ also known as FK506) has considerable anti-rejection benefits for patients in terms of fighting off rejection of new heart after transplant surgery, according to a new study led by researchers.
It was remarked by Dr. Jon Kobashigawa, lead author of the study and medical director of the UCLA Heart Transplant Program, that there has been debate in context to the most advantageous combination therapies for heart transplant recipients due to the lack of definitive clinical trial data comparing commonly used immunosuppressive agents.
From News-Medical.Net:
The study results, presented at the 6th American Transplant Congress in Seattle, involved more than 340 heart transplant recipients, and evaluated three combination therapies: 1) TAC + mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) and steroids, 2) cyclosporine microemulsion (CYA) + MMF and steroids, and 3) TAC + sirolimus (SRL) and steroids.
The primary purpose of this study was to compare the incidence of rejection requiring treatment, as measured by the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) grading system.
Humoral rejection has been recently described in liver, kidney and heart transplant recipients by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Conference. Humoral rejection is caused by the body making antibodies that can attack the donor organ, which is similar to the way that antibodies attack other foreign objects such as viruses or other infectious agents. This form of rejection can occur immediately (hyperacute rejection), or later after transplantation. The antibodies are either preformed antibodies (causing hyperacute rejection) or represent antibodies against the donor organ that developed after transplantation.
The list of other study authors included Dr. Leslie W. Miller, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; Dr. Stuart D. Russell, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD; Dr. Gregory A. Ewald, Washington University, St. Louis, MO; Dr. Mark J. Zucker, Beth Israel Hospital, Newark, NJ; Dr. L. R. Goldberg, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; Dr. H. J. Eisen, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA; Kim Salm, RN, D. Tolzman, W. E. Fitzsimmons, PharmD and Dr. M.R. First, Fujisawa Healthcare, Inc., Deerfield, IL; Dr. J. Gao, The EMMES Corporation, Rockville, MD.
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