Background. Few studies have evaluated the effect of different immunosuppressive strategies on long-term kidney transplant outcomes. Moreover, as they were usually based on historical data, it was not possible to account for the presence of pretransplant donor-specific human-leukocyte antigen antibodies (DSA), a currently recognized risk marker for impaired graft survival. The aim of this study was to evaluate to what extent frequently used initial immunosuppressive therapies increase graft survival in immunological low-risk patients. Methods. We performed an analysis on the PROCARE cohort, a Dutch multicentre study including all transplantations performed in the Netherlands between 1995 and 2005 with available pretransplant serum (n ¼ 4724). All sera were assessed for the presence of DSA by a luminex single-antigen bead assay. Patients with a previous kidney transplantation, pretransplant DSA or receiving induction therapy were excluded from the analysis. Results. Three regimes were used in over 200 patients: cyclosporine (CsA)/prednisolone (Pred) (n ¼ 542), CsA/mycophenolate mofetil (MMF)/Pred (n ¼ 857) and tacrolimus (TAC)/ MMF/Pred (n ¼ 811). Covariate-adjusted analysis revealed no significant differences in 10-year death-censored graft survival between patients on TAC/MMF/Pred therapy (79%) compared with patients on CsA/MMF/Pred (82%, P ¼ 0.88) or CsA/Pred (79%, P ¼ 0.21). However, 1-year rejection-free survival censored for death and failure unrelated to rejection was significantly higher for TAC/MMF/Pred (81%) when compared with CsA/MMF/Pred (67%, P < 0.0001) and CsA/Pred (64%, P < 0.0001). Conclusion. These results suggest that in immunological lowrisk patients excellent long-term kidney graft survival can be achieved irrespective of the type of initial immunosuppressive therapy (CsA or TAC; with or without MMF), despite differences in 1-year rejection-free survival.

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doi.org/10.1093/ndt/gfy377, hdl.handle.net/1765/121546
Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Michielsen, L.A., van Zuilen, A., Verhaar, M., Wisse, B. W., Kamburova, E. G., Joosten, I., … Hilbrands, L.B. (2018). Effect of initial immunosuppression on long-term kidney transplant outcome in immunological low-risk patients. Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation, 34(8), 1417–1422. doi:10.1093/ndt/gfy377