Workshop report: how can immunology (except by tissue typing) improve the results of kidney transplantation.
The aim of the workshop was to discuss the various methods currently available in (cellular) immunology which could be applied to the problems of clinical kidney transplantation. The areas considered in the Workshop were divided into three categories: 1. Methods for immunological diagnosis of rejection, 2. Assays for quantitation of the biological effects of immunosuppressive drugs and 3. Prospects of transplantation tolerance, enhancement and related phenomena in kidney transplantation. As regards to the first topic, several immunological methods (most notably in the fine needle aspiration biopsy and tests for macrophage migration inhibition) were reported to be in use for this purpose. No one of the participants had personal experience of the second topic of the agenda, and the results of Bach and co-workers on the use of the mouse T-rosette inhibition test for this purpose were discussed. Almost half of the allotted time was used to discuss the anti-idiotype antibodies and their potential use for transplantation tolerance in immunologically mature graft recipients. Some results of the human kidney graft enhancement experiments were also discussed in this section.
D006084:Graft Rejection; D006801:Humans; D007108:Immune Tolerance; D007111:Immunity, Cellular; D007165:Immunosuppression Therapy; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D014181:Transplantation Immunology; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous