Experience with cyclosporine in 1519 kidney transplantations from living donors in a national transplant programme, 1983-2002.

Following the introduction of cyclosporine as basic immunosuppression in our national transplant programme in 1983, the pool of grafts from living donors (LDs) was expanded 2 years later by also accepting LDs mismatched for 2 HLA haplotypes and living unrelated donors (LURDs), mostly spouses. A policy of approaching family members to promote donation was consistently pursued. During 1983 through 2002, nephrectomy was performed on 1519 LDs without mortality.

Fewer relapses and increased chronic GVHD in patients transplanted with blood stem cells: a 5-year follow-up in a single centre study.

A total of 61 consecutive adult patients with haematological malignancies with an HLA-identical or one antigen-mismatched haploidentical family donor were randomised to allogeneic transplantation with blood stem cells (BSC) or bone marrow (BM). The median observation time was 5 years. Apart from engraftment parameters and acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), transplant-related mortality (TRM), incidence and severity of chronic GVHD, relapse, leukaemia-free survival (LFS) and overall survival (OS) were recorded.

Individualized T cell monitored administration of ATG versus OKT3 in steroid-resistant kidney graft rejection.

Acute steroid-resistant rejection episodes are recommended to be treated with set doses of anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) or anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody (OKT3). Individualized T cell monitoring has been proposed as a tool for dose finding. A randomized study comparing the efficacy and safety of ATG (n = 27) with OKT3 (n = 28) in the treatment of biopsy verified acute steroid-resistant rejection (ASRR) when both drugs were administered on the basis of daily individualized T cell measurements.