The study was planned to investigate and compare the demographic features and clinical data of 114 renal transplant recipients receiving tacrolimus (TAC) (group I, n=59 patients) or C-2 monitorized cyclosporin (group II, n=55 patients), during a two-year period (2000-2002). Acute and chronic rejection episodes, patient and graft loss, posttransplant (post-tx) diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension (HT) rates were compared in these two groups. In both groups demographic features (age: 37.3±9.5 vs 33.8±10 years,gender: male/female:45/14 vs 35/20, donor type: living-related/cadaveric: 27/32 vs 33/22) were similar. Also no statistical significance was observed in terms of acute (12/59 vs 5/55) or chronic (1/59 vs 1/51) rejection rates and 1st year and last serum creatinine levels (1.2±0.39 vs 1.3±0.4, 1.3±0.4vs 1.4± 0.3, respectively). Post-tx DM and HT rates were similar in both groups. Although there was no patient and graft loss in group II, death (n=6: secondary to infection; CMV in 2, cardiovascular event in 2, PTLD secondary to EBV in 1 and suicide in 1 patient) and graft loss ( n=9 secondary to death in 5, recurrence of primary disease in 1, primary nonfunction in 2 and acute rejection in 1 patient) were seen in group I. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that graft survival (1st year: 89%, 2nd year: 82% in group I and 1st year: 100%, 2nd year: 100 % in group II; LogRank: 0.005) and patient survival (1st year: 91%, 2nd year: 91% in group I and 1st year: 100%, 2nd year: 100 % in group II; LogRank: 0.027) rates were superior in group II.
Our results show that C-2 monitorized cyclosporine regimen appears to be safer in terms of acute rejection and leads to improved survival rates.