BACKGROUND: There is high medical need for safe long-term immunosuppression monotherapy in kidney transplantation. Selective targeting of post-transplant alloantigen-(re)activated effector-T cells by anti-TNF antibodies after global T cell depletion may allow safe drug minimization, however, it is unsolved what might be the best maintenance monotherapy. METHODS: In this open, prospective observational single-centre trial, 20 primary deceased donor kidney transplant recipients received 2x20 mg Alemtuzumab (d0/d1) followed by 5 mg/kg Infliximab (d2). For 14 days all patients received only tacrolimus, then they were allocated to either receive tacrolimus (TAC, n = 13) or sirolimus (SIR, n = 7) monotherapy, respectively. Protocol biopsies and extensive immune monitoring were performed and patients were followed-up for 60 months. RESULTS: TAC-monotherapy resulted in excellent graft survival (5yr 92%, 95%CI: 56.6-98.9) and function, normal histology, and no proteinuria. Immune monitoring revealed low intragraft inflammation (urinary IP-10) and hints for the development of operational tolerance signature in the TAC- but not SIR-group. Remarkably, the TAC-monotherapy was successful in all five presensitized (ELISPOT+) patients. However, recruitment into SIR-arm was stopped (after n = 7) because of high incidence of proteinuria and acute/chronic rejection in biopsies. No opportunistic infections occurred during follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, our novel fast-track TAC-monotherapy protocol is likely to be safe and preliminary results indicated an excellent 5-year outcome, however, a full-scale study will be needed to confirm our findings. TRIAL REGISTRATION: EudraCT Number: 2006-003110-18.

• MeSH
• antigeny nádorové MeSH
• biologické markery metabolismus   MeSH
• CD antigeny MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• glykoproteiny antagonisté a inhibitory   MeSH
• imunosupresiva terapeutické užití   MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• monitorování imunologické MeSH
• prospektivní studie MeSH
• rejekce štěpu farmakoterapie   etiologie   MeSH
• sirolimus terapeutické užití   MeSH
• stanovení celkové genové exprese MeSH
• takrolimus terapeutické užití   MeSH
• TNF-alfa antagonisté a inhibitory   MeSH
• transplantace ledvin škodlivé účinky   MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• klinické zkoušky MeSH
• pozorovací studie MeSH