Avenues of future research in homotransplantation of the liver with particular reference to hepatic supportive procedures, antilymphocyte serum, and tissue typing

The use of heterologous antilymphoid agents in canine renal and liver homotransplantation and in human renal homotransplantation

“…Antilymphoid plasma-The 25 dogs treated before and after renal homotransplantation with doses of 64 to 512 units immune plasma had a survival of 28.2 ± 22 (SD) days, a significant (p < 0.01) improvement over that of controls, The mean figures are somewhat lower than those previously reported (14) because survival credit for any individual animal was limited to 70 days. The 12 dogs with thymectomy lived for 26.4 ± 22 (SD) days compared to 29.8 ± 24 (SD) days for the other 13, a difference which was not significant.…”

“…Control studies-The survival of nontreated control animals previously reported from our laboratory was 11.3 ± 4.6 standard deviation (SD) days after renal homotransplantation (14) and 7.1 ± 2.2 (SD) days after orthotopic liver transplantation (15). New control animals were prepared for the present study with 7 renal and 10 orthotopic liver transplantations.…”

A modern Cosmas and Damian: Sir Roy Calne and Thomas Starzl receive the 2012 Lasker~Debakey Clinical Medical Research Award

“…Surgical improvements included extracorporeal perfusion to preserve donor organs and infection containment (38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43). To improve immunosuppression, Starzl began using antilymphocyte globulin (ALG) as an adjunct to azathioprine and prednisone (44,45). testing, azathioprine (Imuran), had a better therapeutic index than 6-mercaptopurine and was used in the first series of human kidney transplants using immunosuppression in 1961 (25,(28)(29)(30)(31).…”

Long-term Safety, Tolerability and Efficacy of Daclizumab (Zenapax®) in a Two-dose Regimen in Liver Transplant Recipients

“…However, use of these preparations was accompanied by numerous side-effects such as fever, rashes and cardiovascular problems, which were attributed to the polyclonal nature of the utilized antibody preparation (3,6,7). Therefore, monoclonal antibodies being directed to various cell-surface molecules became major tools for clinical immune modulation (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13). The functional effects may be the result of specific target-cell depletions, or of coating or modulation of the targeted surface antigens.…”