Find in News Talk Sites Images For advanced search options, click here . Subscribe for free email updates . Click here to sign up, or log in . More than 12,000 people a year in the United States undergo kidney transplantation, and one in every four of them experience acute rejection of the organ.
Acute rejection is an inflammation of the transplanted kidney.
Early in the history of kidney transplantation, acute rejection was common and usually resulted in almost immediate loss of the organ. If we know a patient has a high risk of acute rejection, we can intensify treatments to prevent it. Medications available today can control acute rejection in 95 percent of cases, although it may cause some loss of function in the transplanted kidney, Cosio said. The study also yielded a second important finding. The research suggests that if we control blood pressure with the right drugs, we may be able to prevent rejection in these cases.