University of Pittsburgh approach has lung recipients taking far f...( There were no opportunistic infectio...),Health

There were no opportunistic infections or related complications in the patients treated with Campath; a small percentage of the Thymoglobulin patients developed either cytomegalovirus (8 percent), the bacterial infection Nocardia (8 percent) or post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (3 percent), rates that were comparable to conventionally treated patients.

One-year follow-up results are not yet available to compare survival between the Thymoglobulin-treated and Campath-treated groups. However, the overall patient survival for Thymoglobulin-treated patients is 84 percent while in the Campath-treated patients it is 98 percent.

"We are encouraged by these preliminary results. What remains to be seen is if our approach will have an impact on chronic rejection," said Dr. McCurry.

"At this point, I think we can say that the standard multi-drug approach to immunosuppression may be excessive and leads to increased complications. Moreover, our promising early results suggest that altering the approach and reducing immunosuppression is not as risky as some would have guessed. The next step we should consider is a multi-center, randomized trial. Only with that kind of data might the transplant community embrace the notion that radical change is warranted," noted Dr. McCurry.

"Personally, I think our approach will presage significant improvements in outcomes for lung transplantation," he added.

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16-May-2004