Simultaneous Liver Kidney Transplantation: Stealing or Saving? That was the topic of a hotly debated 3 lecture session presented by Dr. Nadim from the University of Southern California, Dr. Charlton from Mayo Clinic, and Dr. Levitsky from Chicago. Audience members included nephrologists, hepatologists, and surgeons among others. Here are a few key points that I […]
Development of De Novo HLA antibodies after transplantation: Results from the CTOT02 Study. CTOT02 is a large prospective multi-center trial set in 2 phases. Phase 1 involved screening of unsensitized patients 3-36 months post transplant every 3 months for the development of anti-HLA antibodies with a follow-up period of 60 months. Dr. Chandraker from Brigham […]
Long-term Risk of ESRD in Kidney Donors: Is There Really No Harm? One of the most shocking presentations in the ATC was given during the last plenary session. Dr. Muzaale from John Hopkins presented their analysis of ESRD risk in living donors compared to a matched healthy control population. So most of us quote several […]
Everolimus in liver transplant patients preserves GFR. PROTECT study – 35 month update. Long term exposure to calcineurin inhibitors (CNI) is nephrotoxic. It is believed that these drugs are therefore responsible for the significant number of patients with non-renal solid organ transplants that subsequently develop CKD. This was best seen in the NEJM paper by […]
Does adding rituximab to IVIg and plasmapheresis improve outcome of antibody mediated rejection? One year results of the RITUX-ERAH study. In transplant and nephrology, the use of rituximab has been increasing. Numerous papers have included it as a treatment for antibody mediated rejection (AMR) in the transplant literature; however, there are essentially no placebo controlled […]
The Impact of Pre-donation Weight Loss on Post-donation Outcome. Dr. Marsden from Cardiff transplant unit, University of Wales, shared data on donor obesity from their living donor program during an abstract presentation at the ATC. Programs involved in clearing living kidney donors often have weight cutoffs for living kidney donors but the data on what […]
Eculizumab Therapy for Chronic Antibody Mediated Rejection Chronic antibody mediated rejection (AMR) is currently a major problem in kidney transplantation. Chronic AMR results in poor graft survival and there are no effective therapies. To date the best data on treatment exists with rituximab and IVIg, although still limited. Eculizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody against C5, […]
ATC abstract presentation: Alemtuzumab Induction and Belatacept-Based Immunosuppression in Renal Transplant Recipients: Peripheral Dynamics of T and B cell Populations with Potential Regulatory Signatures. In Monday’s session on Novel immunosuppressive agents, Dr. Xu of Emory University, presented his center’s data on using a combination of belatacept with sirolimus after alemtuzumab induction in kidney transplant recipients. […]
The American Transplant Congress (ATC) is the joint annual meeting of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) and the American Society of Transplantation (AST) and is the must attend meeting for all transplant specialists. The ATC is unique in that the meeting incorporates both medical doctors and surgeons in almost all specialties, including nephrology, […]
