Cyclosporine as a milestone in immunosuppression

In this short review I show how cyclosporine fits into the broader picture of immunosuppression for organ allografting. Before cyclosporine there were some good results, particularly in kidney grafting, but also a failure rate of 50% of grafts by 1 year. Cyclosporine changed the graft survival of 1...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTransplantation proceedings Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. S13 - S15
Main Author Calne, R
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Elsevier Inc 01.03.2004
Subjects
Adult
Cyclosporine - therapeutic use
Humans
Immunosuppression
Immunosuppressive Agents - therapeutic use
Kidney Transplantation - immunology
Kidney Transplantation - mortality
Survival Rate
Transplantation, Homologous - immunology
Transplantation, Homologous - mortality
Treatment Outcome
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Summary:In this short review I show how cyclosporine fits into the broader picture of immunosuppression for organ allografting. Before cyclosporine there were some good results, particularly in kidney grafting, but also a failure rate of 50% of grafts by 1 year. Cyclosporine changed the graft survival of 1 year to 80%, although at 10 years the graft survival was little different from patients treated with azathioprine and steroids. Nevertheless, many patients achieved good function in their kidneys when treated with cyclosporine; these patients would have lost the kidneys under the old regimen. The cause of the late failure in patients treated with cyclosporine was predominantly nephrotoxicity due to the calcineurine inhibition, damaging the kidneys. Now that this is better understood and new drugs are available, many regimens have been tried but cyclosporine remains an important tool for the clinician in the treatment of patients with organ allografts.
ISSN:0041-1345
1873-2623
DOI:10.1016/j.transproceed.2004.01.042