Expanding the kidney allograft donor pool in the tacrolimus era

Kidney transplantation is the most satisfactory modality of treatment for end-stage renal disease. Over the past decade, the results of kidney transplantation have improved dramatically, due to the availability of new immunosuppressive drugs. A newer, more potent drug, Tacrolimus (TAC), approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration on April 12, 1994, is very promising also in renal transplantation, with one-year patient and graft survival equal or superior to results of recipients treated with cyclosporine (CyA). However, the number of patients on dialysis and awaiting kidney transplantation has increased more than fivefold during the past 15 years and now exceeds 26,000.