Donor-specific anti-HLA antibody monitoring and removal in solid organ transplant recipients.

Based on our knowledge that donor specific anti-HLA antibodies (DSA) are a major cause of allograft loss, determining how to monitor patients for DSA and how to treat them is important. Current published studies indicate that patients with preformed DSA differ from those without. Approximately 15-18 percent of transplant patients will have preformed DSA, which increases risk for early antibody mediated rejection (AMR) and allograft loss. The fact that nearly all AMR episodes occur in the first 1-2 months, coupled with the finding that a reduction in preformed DSA intensity within the first few weeks post-transplant decreases the risk of AMR, makes early testing important. It has also been shown that clearance of DSA at 6 months and 1 year can result in a decreased risk of transplant glomerulopathy and therefore, these times may be prime testing points. This monitoring schedule differs slightly from that of the patients who do not have performed DSA (i.e. low risk patients). Low risk patients who develop de novo DSA are most likely to do so in the first 6 months. However, more frequent sampling in the early months does not improve predictability of acute rejections in low risk patients and therefore, it is not as essential. Rather, testing at 6 months and then annually or biannually, would be beneficial, as it would serve to identify the 5 percent of new patients who develop DSA annually. Once these patients are identified, studies have shown that preemptive treatment to a goal of antibody clearance can be used to improve graft function and survival. In addition to screening for new DSA, monitoring for clearance of DSA along with histologic reversal of rejection in patients with AMR is important. In sum, there is substantial evidence suggesting that all patients need to have some monitoring for DSA to identify new onset of DSA or clearance of DSA. Additionally, in all DSA scenarios, treatment of persistent DSA is important, as it can lead to improved allograft survival (read more).

A report of the epidemiology of de novo donor-specific anti-HLA antibodies (DSA) in "low-risk" renal transplant recipients.

The donor specific anti-HLA antibody (DSA) has been increasingly recognized as the major cause of allograft loss. Despite this, no published reports exist describing the true epidemiology of de novo DSA.Here we describe the epidemiology of DSA based on the results of one of the longest running antibody study in consecutive renal transplant recipients. The study includes 224 non-sensitized, non-HLA-identical patients who received a primary kidney transplant between 3/1999-3/2006. Protocol testing for DSA was done pre-transplant, at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, and then annually. DSA was tested using single antigen beads. Data from the East Carolina University transplant cohort indicate that the prevalence of DSA in the first year post-transplant is 12.1 cases per 100. The average annual incidence of DSA is 4.7 per 100 cases, per year. The highest incidence of DSA was in the first year post transplant. Although deceased donors and African-Americans have a higher incidence rate of DSA than the comparator living donors and non-African American groups, respectively, these factors were not associated with DSA onset. The one factor found to be predictive of DSA was DQ mismatch (p = 0.036). Based on these epidemiologic findings in combination with previous reports showing DSA is a cause of allograft failure, it seems reasonable that at least annual testing should be done even in "low-risk" transplant patients, because every year a new 5% of patients will develop DSA (read more)

Cell Population in Spleens During Antibody-Mediated Rejection: Pathologic and Clinical Findings.

BACKGROUND: In the treatment of refractory antibody-mediated rejection (AMR), splenectomy has been associated with surprisingly rapid recovery of renal function. The mechanism is still unclear. METHODS: We review 11 recipients, who underwent rescue splenectomy (RS) as a treatment of AMR within 3 months after kidney transplantation. At transplantation, all patients had undergone desensitization for initially positive crossmatch to their prospective donors. The cellular populations of the spleen were analyzed by immunohistochemistry. For comparison, we obtained spleen specimens from eight controls who were nontransplantation patients. RESULTS: Rejection occurred in all the patients early after transplantation (mean [SD], 7.1 [5.7] days). One graft was lost 4 weeks after kidney transplantation. A significantly higher number of plasma cells (PCs) (P=0.049) and lower number of T and B lymphocytes (P=0.02 and P=0.005, respectively) were detected in the RS group compared with the control group. By analyzing the PC variations in the RS group, significantly lower numbers of PCs were detected in the spleens of patients who received rituximab before splenectomy (P=0.0004). In contrast, a higher number of PCs were found in patients (n=3) who did not respond to splenectomy and subsequently underwent bortezomib treatment and recovered their renal function (P=0.02). CONCLUSIONS: Splenectomy may reverse AMR by debulking PCs. Our analysis suggests that patients with a very high load of PCs may not be rescued by splenectomy alone and may need additional treatments (read more)