Conditions: Renal Function and Chronic Allograft Vasculopathy
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 115
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
A controlled, randomized, open-label, multicenter study evaluating if early initiation of everolimus and early elimination of cyclosporine in de novo heart transplant recipients can improve long-term renal function and slow down the progression of chronic allograft vasculopathy

Detailed description:
This was a prospective, multi-center, randomized, controlled, parallel group, open label study in de novo heart transplant recipients. Patients eligibility for randomization was assessed 5 days after heart transplant.. Patients fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria were randomized to one of two treatment groups: either conventional treatment with Cyclosporine A (CsA), Mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), and corticosteroids (Group A), or low-dose CsA and everolimus, reduced dose MMF, and corticosteroids (Group B). After 7 to 11 weeks, CsA was discontinued in Group B, while the standard triple-drug immunosuppressive regimen was maintained in Group A.

Arms:
arm 1: Participants started immunosuppressive regimen consisting of low dose CsA, everolimus, MMF and CS. After week 11, the participants regimen consisted of everolimus, MMF and CS. arm 2: Participants received an immunosuppressive regimen consisting of CsA, MMF and CS throughout the study.

Interventions: intervention 1: Cyclosporine intervention 2: Mycophenolate mofetil intervention 3: Corticosteroids intervention 4: Everolimus intervention 5: Anti Thymocyte Globulin
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Cyclosporine (CsA) control group target blood level: 150-350 ng/mL (month 1-3); 100-250 ng/mL (month 4-6); 60-200 ng/mL (month 7-12); everolimus group target blood level: 75-175 ng/mL (month 1-3) intervention 2: Mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) target dose for control group: 2000-3000 mg/day everolimus group target dose: 1500-2000 mg/day and 75-175 ng/mL after week 11 intervention 3: Corticosteroids (CS) initiated at 0.2-0.5 mg/kg/day. Tapered to no less than 0.1 mg/kg at Month 3 for control and everolimus groups. intervention 4: Everolimus 0.75 mg twice a day as starting dose up to a target blood level: 3-6 ng/mL (7-11 weeks) and 6-10 ng/mL for remaining of study intervention 5: Induction therapy, Anti Thymocyte Globulin (ATG): 1-2 mg/kg/day during 3-5 days for control and everolimus groups after transplant surgery and prior to randomization.

Protocol document: