New experiences with antilymphocyte globulin in human organ transplantation

This is a retrospective analysis of 100 consecutive primary renal allotransplantations using cadaver kidneys exclusively. Seven patients were sensitive to horse globulin and were therefore not treated with ALG. In all the other 93 patients ALG was given for the first postoperative weeks in addition to standard immunosuppressive therapy. In this group, the one year survival with functioning primary transplan is 73%. The control group is also doing fairly well (5 out of 7 surviving), but it is too small for statistical analysis. Several possible explanations are given for the divergent results in this field.