Conditions: Kidney Transplant Failure and Rejection
Keywords: Kidney Transplant Living Donor Kidney Transplant Recipients
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 40
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
This is an open label, single-center, randomized phase IV pilot study of steroid and calcineurin inhibitor avoidance in renal transplant recipients. All patients will receive two doses of alemtuzumab to achieve peripheral T-cell depletion. Intravenous glucocorticoids will be administered prior to alemtuzumab administration to limit cytokine release syndrome in association with this monoclonal antibody, and continued for the first two days post-transplant. Thereafter, steroids will not be used for immunosuppression. All transplant recipients will be started on oral immunosuppressive therapy with mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) prior to transplant. Pretransplant, these patients will be randomized to receive, in addition, either tacrolimus (Tac) or sirolimus.

After six months, patients in the tacrolimus arm who do not experience rejection will be randomized to continue on tacrolimus or to be converted to the combination of sirolimus and MMF. Individuals in this arm of the study who do not experience acute rejection, and demonstrate evidence of donor specific hyporesponsiveness at 9 months post-transplant (those staying on Tac + MMF) or 3 months post-conversion (those converted from Tac + MMF to sirolimus + MMF) will be weaned to MMF monotherapy.

Individuals in the sirolimus + MMF arm who do not experience acute rejection and demonstrate evidence of donor specific hyporesponsiveness at 6 months post-transplant will be weaned to MMF monotherapy.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: Receive two doses of alemtuzumab (Campath-1H, 30mg) by intravenous (IV) infusion. One dose during kidney transplant surgery and the second dose on day 2 (post-surgery) to achieve peripheral T-cell depletion. IV glucocorticoids will be given prior to Campath administration to limit cytokine release syndrome in association with this monoclonal antibody. MMF on the day of surgery and continue taking it by mouth, twice daily. TAC started on the 1st day after surgery, and then taken by mouth twice daily. arm 2: Sirolimus will be taken by mouth before transplant surgery and will continue taking once daily after surgery. Group 2 will also receive 2 doses of Alemtuzumab: one during surgery and the second will be given on the second day after surgery. Mycophenolate mofetil will be give on the day of surgery and twice daily, by mouth, as instructed by the doctor.

If subjects do not experience kidney rejection after 6 months after surgery, they will be weaned off of the sirolimus and continue taking the mycophenolate mofetil.

Interventions: intervention 1: Tacrolimus (TAC) intervention 2: Sirolimus intervention 3: Alemtuzumab intervention 4: Mycophenolate mofetil (MMF)
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Tacrolimus (TAC) will be given standard of care by prescription twice a day (2.0 mg), orally. Doses will be adjusted by serum levels. The dose will be modified to achieve 12 hour trough concentrations of 5-8 ng/mL. intervention 2: Sirolimus will be given standard of care by prescription, dosed at 5mg daily. The dosage will be adjusted by serum level to achieve 24 hour trough concentrations of 8-12 ng/mL by HPLC assay. intervention 3: Patients receiving alemtuzumab will be premedicated with 50mg of diphenhydramine hydrochloride, and 650mg of acetaminophen 30-60 minutes to the first Alemtuzumab infusion. The of 30mg will be diluted in 100cc sterile 0.9% normal saline and infused over 2 hours. The infusion line must contain an in-line 0.22-micron filter. Alemtuzumab will be administered on the day of transplant (intraoperatively), and on post-operative day 2. Both doses will be administered while the patient is in the hospital. Alemtuzumab is supplied in single-use clear glass ampoules containing 30mg of alemtuzumab in 3mL of solution. intervention 4: MMF will be given at 1.0-1.5gm, twice daily, orally. The first dose will be given pre-transplant, open label fashion.

Protocol document: