Immunosuppression use in renal transplantation from Asian transplant centers: a preliminary report from the Asian Transplant Registry.

Since the first renal transplant (RTx) in 1956 in Asia in Japan, over 100,000 RTx have been performed in over 300 centers across the region. A survey was conducted to evaluate immunosuppression (IS) use among Asian RTx. Briefly, directors of RTx centers were surveyed regarding IS use for RTx performed at their centers in 2001 for (1) induction therapy, (2) maintenance IS therapy at hospital discharge, (3) antirejection treatment (REJ) to 1 year post-RTx, and (4) maintenance IS therapy to 1 year post-RTx. Categories and types of IS included in the survey were polyclonal antilymphocyte antibodies (PAB), OKT3, IL2 receptor antibodies (IL2RAb), corticosteroids (CS), cyclosporine (CyA), tacrolimus (Tac), azathioprine (Aza), mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), Mizoribine (Miz), Sirolimus (Sir), and other agents. Though only 17 RTx centers in Asia responded to the survey, a wide variation in IS use was demonstrated. In the 334 living and 85 cadavericRTx among whom actual usage was reported, induction therapy was used in only 18.4% of Asian RTx (14.1%, IL2RAb; 4.3%, PAB), in contrast to the 59.3% reported as using induction IS among RTx from the UNOS database in the same year. For maintenance therapy at hospital discharge, 87.1% of Asian RTx received CyA-based IS while only 12.4% received Tac-based therapy. This is in contrast to the 55.3% use of Tac for new RTx in the United States. Generic CyA has widespread use in Asia with over 29.9% on CyA using generic versus the Neoral formulation. Azathioprine is still the predominant antimetabolite in use in Asian RTx, with MMF being used in only 33.6% of patients, in contrast to its 77% usage in the United States. Usage of Tac and MMF for maintenance therapy was significantly higher among cadavericRTx (P < .005). Corticosteroids were used in 51.1% of REJ episodes while PAB or OKT3 were used in 31.9% and 17% of REJ episodes, respectively. As these results may be skewed due to participation of few centers in the survey, greater participation will ensure more accurate evaluation of immunosuppression use in Asia for de novo RTx.