Low dose heparin: efficacious treatment for chronic renal allograft rejection.
Recent data indicate that aside from its anti-coagulant action heparin has potent immunobiological activities inhibiting cell trafficking to a site of antigen. In addition, heparin inhibits smooth muscle cell proliferation and decreases the synthesis of the extracellular matrix proteins. As those phenomena are thought to play a major role in the pathogenesis of chronic allograft rejection, we performed a trial evaluating the efficacy of low dose heparin (5 U/kg/day) in 23 recipients of renal allografts with biopsy-proven rejection. In 16 patients (70%) a tendency for improvement was seen which in 57% was statistically significant. Our data suggest that low dose non-anticoagulant heparin may be an efficacious means for treatment of chronic rejection.
Gradowska
L
L
Immunotherapy Clinics, Warsaw, Poland.
Lao
M
M
Morzycka-Michalik
M
M
Górski
A
A
D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005260:Female; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006493:Heparin / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D007668:Kidney / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000276:immunology*; D008297:Male
D006493:Heparin