Preliminary study of neutrophil leukocyte function in uremic patients and renal transplant recipients

Rejection and infection are two major problems that affect the success of renal transplantation. Renal transplant recipients should be on immunosuppressants after surgery and this in turn gives rise to the susceptibility of the recipients to infection. In this study, we have monitored: Neutrophil leukocyte chemotaxis; Neutrophil leukocyte subpopulation; Lymphocytes, T-cells, B-cells, active T-cells population among uremic patients, renal transplant recipients, control subjects of hospital staff and renal graft donors. The results indicate that there is no discernible difference between uremic patients, renal transplant recipients and control subjects in neutrophil leukocyte chemotaxis. However, the neutrophil leukocyte subpopulation of the transplant recipients is significantly low. The T-lymphocyte population of the transplant recipients was also decreased. This phenomenon is often found shortly after transplantation. The higher incidence of early post-transplant infection might probably be attributed to the decrease of neutrophil leukocyte subpopulation and total T-lymphocyte population in the recipients undergoing massive immunosuppression. When the situation of the transplant recipients becomes stable and when they are given minimal maintenance dose of immunosuppressive drugs, their T-lymphocyte population becomes normal both in morphological count and functional assay.