Lesser cardiovascular events for post-transplant patients without steroids

Benefits are easy to come for post-transplant patients not administered with corticosteroids when compared to their counterparts on steroids, as per transplantation researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC).

This finding was presented by researchers with the Division of transplantation and department of internal medicine at the American Transplant Congress (ATC), the annual meeting of the American Society of Transplantation on May 1-5 in San Diego.

From Sciencedaily.com:

UC researchers are also reporting results of shared protocols on the bortezomib treatment for antibody-mediated rejection. After presenting their bortezomib findings at the 2009 ATC, UC researchers created the START collaborative to share standard of care treatment protocols for bortezomib therapies. Through the collaborative, transplant centers worldwide have requested this information to treat individual patients with a variety of solid organ transplant types.

"The information shared from this partnership represents an international collaborative experience of treating this unmet need in transplantation that inevitably results in graft loss," says Alloway. "Because transplant centers may have one to five antibody-mediated cases a year, it's difficult to assess a potential new treatment. But when you are able to share every center's cases together in one report, it's easier to identify trends that support definitive design of future controlled trials."

The researchers reported that post-transplant patients off steroids experienced fewer cardiovascular events, improved graft survival rates, and reduced early mortality than patients administered with steroids.