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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 2001;19:690-695
© 2001 Elsevier Science NL

Tacrolimus as a rescue immunosuppressant after heart transplantation

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, St. George's Hospital, Blackshaw Road, London SW17 0QT, UK

Received 12 October 2000; received in revised form 5 February 2001; accepted 9 March 2001.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-208-725-1094; fax: +44-208-725-0360.

Objective: The purpose of this retrospective study is to review our experience with tacrolimus as a rescue immunosuppressant for heart transplant recipients with refractory rejection or cyclosporine intolerance. Methods: From June 1995 to November 1998, 15 cardiac transplant recipients were converted from our standard cyclosporine-based immunosuppressive regimen to a tacrolimus-based treatment. Each patient had been treated with cyclosporine, azathioprine and steroids. Six were switched to tacrolimus for persistent rejection, four for recurrent acute rejection and five for severe debilitating side-effects attributed to cyclosporine. All ten patients converted to tacrolimus because of rejection had been treated with high-dose methylprednisolone intravenously and four had also received anti-lymphocyte globulin (ALG; one patient) or anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG; three patients) preparations. Results: The time between transplantation and conversion to tacrolimus ranged from 44 to 1866 (median, 380) days. The range of follow-up after conversion was 84–1379 (median, 806) days. Eleven patients are alive with a follow-up period of 764±435 (median, 820) days. Four patients died between 90 and 930 (median, 464) days after conversion. The average number of episodes of acute rejection/recipient decreased from 2.1±1.6 on the cyclosporine regimen to 0.2±0.4 on the tacrolimus regimen (P<0.001). When the incidence of acute rejection was normalized for follow-up times (episodes/100 patient-days), the results were 1.1±1.4 and 0.07±0.2, respectively (P<0.01). The persistent/recurrent rejection resolved in all ten patients who were converted to tacrolimus. None of the five cyclosporine intolerant patients converted to tacrolimus experienced rejection after the changeover. Conclusions: In our experience, conversion from a cyclosporine-based to a tacrolimus-based maintenance immunosuppression has been shown to be an effective and safe approach to the management of patients with persistent or recurrent cardiac allograft rejection or those with cyclosporine intolerance.

Key Words: Heart transplantation, Refractory rejection • Tacrolimus • Rescue immunosuppression

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