Circulating Immune Complexes after Cadaver Kidney Transplantation

Abstract

351 sera from 27 human recipients of renal allografts and 21 healthy blood donors were assayed for circulating immune complexes by the C1q solid-phase radioimmune assay. Increased C1q-binding activity (C1q-BA) was detected in pretransplant sera from 5 patients with chronic pyelonephritis (PN) and 3 patients with chronic glomerulonephritis (GN). A significant decrease of C1q-BA immediately after transplantation could not be found. 6 weeks after transplantation only 2 patients of the PN group showed increased C1q-BA. Serial studies in 17 patients with rejection crises did not show any correlation between the level of serum C1q-BA and the occurrence of rejections. Furthermore, no correlation could be found between the occurrence of complement-dependent lymphocytotoxic antibodies measured by the ⁵¹Cr release technique and the level of serum C1q-BA. In contrast, our results show that the probability of graftectomy or graft failure is significantly higher, at least in the early phase after transplantation, when the serum C1q-BA is lowered for several weeks.