Chronic allograft nephropathy

Adv Chronic Kidney Dis. 2006 Jan;13(1):56-61. doi: 10.1053/j.ackd.2005.11.004.

Abstract

With the advent of calcineurin inhibitors, the success of kidney and other solid-organ transplants has improved significantly from the standpoint of reducing the incidence of acute rejection. Over the past 2 decades, both short-term allograft survival and acute rejection rates have dramatically improved with improved diagnostic and therapeutic techniques such as standardized pathology scoring; potent antirejection drugs such as anti-thymocyte globulin, interleukin-2 receptor antibodies, cyclosporine, tacrolimus, sirolimus, and mycophenolate mofetil; and improved infection control such as valganciclovir and antifungal therapy. However, long-term graft loss has remained at nearly constant levels over the same period of time, with the average half-life of a deceased-donor kidney transplant in the United States remaining approximately 1 decade. In addition to death with a functioning allograft and calcineurin toxicity, a chronic fibrotic process-known at various times as chronic rejection, chronic allograft dysfunction, and chronic allograft nephropathy (CAN)-account for the leading causes of transplant failure.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Graft Survival
  • Humans
  • Incidence
  • Kidney Failure, Chronic* / epidemiology
  • Kidney Failure, Chronic* / etiology
  • Kidney Failure, Chronic* / pathology
  • Kidney Transplantation*
  • Risk Factors
  • Transplantation, Homologous
  • Treatment Failure