Maintenance immunosuppressive treatment and graft half-life

Longer graft half-lives were associated with Caucasian race, living donors, younger donor age. The HLA-matching effect on graft half-life was only significant when comparing HLA-matched transplant recipients with recipients of HLA-mismatched transplants, but not significant between mismatched recipients with varying degrees of HLA mismatch. First transplant recipients maintained on newer post-1995 immunosuppressive drug therapies, including tacrolimus, MMF and steroids, Neoral, MMF and steroids or Neoral, azathioprine and steroids, always had longer graft half-lives than patients on pre-1995 CsA protocols. The difference in graft half-lives between new and old protocols reached statistical significance in some categories. Patients on triple therapies had consistently longer graft half-lives than those receiving double therapies.