If this is not your name, click here. Other Ophthalmic Surgery Organ Transplantation Orthopaedics Other Osteoarthritis Osteoporosis Otitis Otorhino. The CD45RB antibody induces antigen-specific tolerance that may allow transplant patients to stop the chronic use of toxic immunosuppressive drugs. The antibody also shows promise for use with autoimmune diseases.
Rejection continues to be the major impediment to successful organ transplantation.
Current transplant technology requires chronic use of steroids and global immunosuppressants, such as cyclosporine, to prevent rejection. These drugs leave patients vulnerable to infection, cancer and other diseases. Besides the serious side effects, present immunosuppressant therapy is only partially successful. About 60 percent of kidney transplant patients have at least one rejection episode in the first three months after surgery. None of the current immunosuppressive agents offer the hope of immune tolerance without chronic immunosuppressant use.