[Effective renal plasma flow in renal transplant rejection]

It is important to differentiate between cell-mediated (acute) and humoral (chronic) rejection in renal transplantation in order to initiate appropriate therapy. Since effective renal plasma flow (ERPF) provides a sensitive method of analyzing renal function, this test was undertaken to evaluate the possibility of differentiating acute and chronic rejections by ERPF. A total of 90 patients (no rejection: 33, acute rejection: 45, chronic rejection: 12) were retrospectively included in this study. ERPF was determined by performing comprehensive renal function test (Tauxe et al., 1980) and Student's unpaired t-test was used to evaluate the statistical difference (no rejection vs chronic rejection, no rejection vs acute rejection, acute rejection vs chronic rejection). The ERPF value of the no rejection group (228.9 +/- 119.2 ml/min) was significantly higher than the ERPF value of the acute rejection group (167.5 +/- 86.9 ml/min) and the chronic rejection group (137.2 +/- 60.2 ml/min) (P < 0.05). By in contrast, there was no significant difference between the acute rejection group and the chronic rejection group (P > 0.05). We concluded that ERPF value alone could not differentiate between acute rejection and chronic rejection in renal transplantation.