[ad_1]
UW Hospital plans to launch the country's first study of a cell therapy for a potentially serious complication of kidney transplants, the most common type of organ transplant.
Doctors will administer immune cells from the donor to kidney recipients who develop a serious cytomegalovirus infection, or CMV. The virus, usually benign in most people, can become dangerous in patients with suppressed immune systems, such as those who take drugs to prevent rejection of the donor's organs.
CMV can damage the brain, lungs, intestine and kidneys in kidney transplant recipients, said Dr. Arjang Djamali, chief of the kidney medicine department at UW Health. Antiviral drugs to treat the infection do not always work and may have side effects, such as reducing blood counts and kidney function, said Jamali.
In the Phase 1 trial scheduled to begin at UW Hospital later this year, doctors will collect T cells from a CMV-exposed, compatible donor and extend them into a UW-managed advanced cell therapy laboratory. (PACT). .
The cells, formed by the donor's immune system to target CMV, will be given to the kidney recipient to fight the infection. The cell donor may be the same person who donated the kidney, whether it was a live donor transplant, or a family member or other well-matched person.
"We hope to have found a solution with cell therapy," said Jamali, who designed the study with Dr. Jacques Galipeau, director of PACT.
continue reading
your article
with a digital subscription.
Thank you for being a subscriber.
Sorry, your subscription does not include this content.
Call 800-362-8333 to update your subscription.
If the trial involving 20 patients succeeds, doctors plan to extend the study to a larger number of centers and participants, possibly including recipients of other organs, Djamali said.
UW Hospital, one of the largest transplant centers in the country, carries out nearly 300 kidney transplants a year.
About one third of kidney recipients develop a CMV infection, which is severe for about a third of them, said Jamali. Some acquire CMV from the donor's organ or in another way after the transplant. But in most cases, a previous infection is reactivated after you start taking immunosuppressive drugs to accept the donor kidney, he said.
The test will test three doses of cell therapy. "We hope to find the right dose in terms of safety and efficiency," said Djamali.
[ad_2]
Source link