New Clinical Trial Testing New Methods for Managing Kidney Transplant Rejection

A new clinical trial will test the use of a “patient’s own mesenchymal stromal cells” as a means of managing kidney rejection following a transplant.

Cells taken from the patient’s lip will be used to “treat a specific type of organ rejection called T-cell mediated rejection, also called acute cellular rejection.” T-cells “react to antigens produced by the body that distinguish between native and transplanted tissue,” which can affect the kidney in such a way as to cause rejection. Kidney rejection occurs in “approximately 10% of patients within one year, contributing to risk of long-term transplanted kidney dysfunction.”

Standard practice is to use “anti-rejection drugs that suppress the immune system’s response to the new organ,” which can have “serious side effects like increased risk for cancer, infections, and high blood pressure, among others.”

The FDA recently approved an investigational new drug application to initiate this clinical trial. Stem cells will be collected from the patients and then “processed and multiplied” before being “injected once under the skin of the patient’s abdomen in an outpatient procedure.” This type of cell therapy has “shown promise in other human applications.”