Cytoimmunologic monitoring after heart and heart-lung transplantation.
The ability of cytoimmunologic monitoring to detect acute rejection in heart and heart-lung transplant recipients was assessed. Seventeen heart and nine heart-lung transplant patients treated with cyclosporine as the primary immunosuppressive agent were monitored after operation. Seventeen acute rejection episodes occurred in the heart-only recipients and 12 in the combined heart-lung recipients. These acute rejection reactions were accompanied by increased numbers of "activated" lymphocytes in all but one case, providing cytoimmunologic monitoring a sensitivity of 100% in the heart-lung recipients and 94% in the heart recipients. The specificity was, however, low (68% in the heart recipients and 55% in the heart-lung recipients). Seventy-two percent of the false-positive results were associated with viral infections, particularly cytomegalovirus infections.
May
R M
RM
Provincial Laboratory for Tissue Immunology, Cape Town, South Africa.
Cooper
D K
DK
Du Toit
E D
ED
Reichart
B
B
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000276:immunology; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000276:immunology*; D016041:Heart-Lung Transplantation / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D008875:Middle Aged; D015166:Monitoring, Immunologic