Study: Cyclosporine Better Than Prograf for Living Donor Kidney Transplants

Kidneys transplanted from living donors are significantly more likely to be functioning two years after the surgery if the recipients take cyclosporine as their primary anti-rejection drug rather than Prograf, according to Los Angeles researchers.

Reporting in the journal Transplantation, the researchers from Cedars-Sinai and UCLA said used the United Network for Organ Sharing Renal Transplant Registry to compare outcomes for more than 7,000 patients who received living-donor kidney transplants in 1998 and 1999.

They said the two-year kidney survival rate for 4,686 patients receiving cyclosporine with mycophenolate mofetil as their immunosuppressive medications was 94.3 percent, compared to 92.2 percent for 2,393 patients receiving prograf with mycophenolate mofetil.

"After adjustment for potential confounding factors, risk of graft failure at 2 years was significantly higher in patients receiving Prograf and mycophenolate mofetil versus cyclosporine and mycophenolate mofetil," the researchers said.

"Our findings demonstrate that 2-year renal allograft survival is significantly higher in living-donor recipients receiving cyclosporine compared with Prograf as initial immunosuppression in combination with mycophenolate mofetil," the researchers concluded.

Other Sources: Transplantation