A retrospective study of the prognostic impact of cytokine secretion in mixed lymphocyte culture on long-term graft function following allogeneic renal transplantation.

We have previously shown that in vitro measurement of cytokine production prior to renal transplantation can provide predictive information on the risk of acute rejection. Our earlier studies demonstrated that patients who secreted high levels of interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) in OKT3-stimulated or mixed lymphocyte culture had a significantly increased risk of acute rejection compared with patients who secreted lower levels. In this study, we performed a retrospective analysis of the same cohort of patients in order to determine the prognostic value of cytokine profiles and other variables on long-term graft function. Our results show that high levels of IFN-gamma in pretransplant mixed lymphocyte culture are a highly significant predictor of poorer creatinine levels at 18, 24 and 36 months post-transplant.