Researchers at the Mayo Clinic report that use of Thymoglobulin, an anti-rejection treatment used for kidney transplant patients, helps reduce the risk of rejection for diabetic patients having a solitary pancreas transplant.

Solitary pancreas transplants, whether alone or after a kidney transplant, have higher rejection rates and lower graft survival rates than simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplants.

Specialists at the Mayo divided 29 pancreas transplant recipients into three groups, giving them either Thymoglobulin, daclizumab or OKT3.

Reporting in the journal Transplantation, Dr. Mark D. Stegall said Thymoglobulin significantly decreased rejection in the first 6 months when compared with OKT3 or daclizumab. He also said the pancreas was still functioning after one year in 91.7 percent of the Thymoglobulin group compared to an 89.3 percent rate for all of the pancreas recipients.

"Thymoglobulin induction regimen led to a low incidence of acute rejection and a high rate of graft survival in solitary pancreas transplants," the researchers concluded. "In addition, surveillance biopsies were useful in the detection of early acute rejection in the absence of biochemical abnormalities."