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Minerva Urologica e Nefrologica 2003 June;55(2):111-8

Copyright © 2003 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Acute renal allograft rejections, a role for statins?

Holdaas H. ¹, Jardine A. ²

¹ Department of Medicine, National Hospital, Oslo, Norway 2 Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Western Infirmary, Glasgow, UK

Acute rejec­tion of kid­ney allo­grafts dur­ing the ­first ­months fol­low­ing trans­plan­ta­tion is one of the ­most impor­tant ­risk fac­tor for ­long-­term ­graft fail­ure. ­Some ­small ­open stud­ies ­have indi­cat­ed ­that 3-­hydroxy-3-meth­yl­glu­ta­ryl coen­zyme A (HMG-Co-A), sta­tins, ­might act as immu­no­sup­pres­sive ­agents, and ­reduce ­acute rejec­tion ­rates. More­over, the use of sta­tin in trans­plant recip­ients is ­quite com­mon, ­despite no ­data ­from pros­pec­tive ­large mul­ti-cen­tre stud­ies are avail­able to dem­on­strate any ben­e­fi­cial ­effect for ­acute rejec­tions or ­long-­term car­di­o­vas­cu­lar pro­tec­tion in ­this pop­u­la­tion. In ­this over­view, ­recent clin­i­cal and experi­men­tal ­data ­will be pro­vid­ed for assess­ing sta­tins as immu­no­sup­pres­sive agents. ­Although in ­vitro stud­ies ­have pro­vid­ed a theo­ret­i­cal ­basis for the use of sta­tins as immu­no­sup­pres­sive ­agents, ­more ­recent clin­i­cal pla­ce­bo con­trolled stud­ies ­have ­failed to con­firm the ­initial opti­mism of ­this ­effect of sta­tins.