Strategies to reduce or replace steroid dosing

Abstract

Basiliximab is widely used in clinical practice for initial immunosuppressive treatment of renal transplant recipients, seeking to reduce the incidence of acute rejection episodes without adverse events. This retrospective study included 123 renal allograft recipients transplanted at a single center. All were followed for longer than 1 year after transplantation and treated with calcineurin inhibitor and steroid (methylprednisolone) for prophylactic immunosuppression, but basiliximab and mycophenolate mofetil were optional. We compared the outcomes of renal transplant recipients who were versus treated were not with basiliximab as initial immunosuppressive therapy. Basiliximab was used for initial immunosuppression in 42 patients. Their maintenance immunosuppressive treatment included triple (n = 44) or double (n = 79) regimens, including a calcineurin inhibitor (cyclosporine [n = 87] or tacrolimus [n = 36]), methylprednisolone with or without mycophenolate mofetil. Twenty-six (21.1%) patients had a rejection episode within 1 year after transplantation and 22 (17.9%) had infections. Within the first year after transplantation the patients who were treated with basiliximab showed fewer rejection episodes (n = 6, 14.3%) than the patients without this therapy (n = 20, 24.7%), which was not statistically significant (P = .245). However, basiliximab significantly affected the occurrence of rejection episodes among the double immunosuppressive regimen group (P = .006), but not the triple regimen group (P = .098) without an impact on infection episodes (P value of double, triple = .291, .414) within 1 year after transplantation. We concluded that basiliximab was more useful for the recipients treated with double immunosuppression with a calcineurin inhibitor and steroid than for those on a triple regimen including mycophenolate mofetil.