The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it has cleared a test to help manage potential organ rejection in kidney transplant patients. The test, called QMS Everolimus Immunoassay, monitors the blood level of everolimus, a drug that helps prevent rejection in kidney transplants. Everolimus, marketed under the trade name Zortress, was approved by FDA in April 2010 for use in adult kidney transplant patients who are at low-to-moderate immunologic risk. 

Transplant patients are routinely given drugs that suppress the immune system. These drugs help prevent organ rejection, which occurs when the body's immune system attacks and destroys a transplanted organ. Some immunosuppressants are associated with toxic side effects that can injure transplanted kidneys. Balancing the levels of immunosuppressants is critical since transplant patients must take these drugs for the rest of their lives. QMS Everolimus is one of a number of FDA-cleared or -approved tests physicians can use to monitor and manage immunosuppressant levels. These tests, along with careful monitoring of clinical signs and symptoms of organ rejection, tissue biopsies, and other lab tests, may increase the chance of having a successful transplant and possibly extend the survival of a transplanted kidney.

Transporting live donor kidneys long distances for transplantation into recipients does not adversely affect outcomes, a finding that could increase the number of donors and recipients who participate in kidney-paired donation (KPD), according to researchers. Optimizing the possibilities of KPD involves the participation of donor-recipient pairs from a wide geographic region. When these types of transplants were started it was envisioned that the donors would travel to the recipient's medical center. However, it turned out to be much more appropriate to transport the kidneys rather than the donors.

Researchers reviewed outcomes of this practice by looking at all KPD programs in the United States. Specifically, they looked at outcomes involving all live-donor kidney transports. They assessed early graft function by urine output in the first eight hours, postoperative serum creatinine trend, and incidence of delayed graft function. They found that shipping live-donor kidneys is perfectly safe and helps facilitate more transplants for patients in need. There was no difference in how well the kidneys functioned compared to those transplanted immediately from someone in a nearby operating room in the same hospital.

For patients with severe chronic kidney disease, the best treatment option is usually a kidney transplant from a living donor. Unfortunately, African American and older patients are much less likely than patients of other races or ages to receive kidney transplants from living donors.

African American and older patients are much less likely than patients of other races or ages to receive kidney transplants from living donors, according to a study in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Furthermore, African American or older kidney transplant candidates who did have potential living donors were still less likely to receive living donor kidney transplants. The study found African American or older kidney transplant candidates were less likely to have friends or family members contact their transplant center to volunteer as possible living kidney donors.

Barriers at both these steps in the living donor process contribute to the lower rates of living donor kidney transplant among African American or older patients.