CHICAGO: According to a new study, a drug used to treat cancer has proven effective at stopping the body from rejecting a transplanted organ when other treatments failed.
Steve Woodle of University of Cincinnati (U-C) and colleagues found that the drug bortezomib, used to treat cancer of plasma cells, is effective in treating rejection episodes caused by antibodies that target transplanted kidneys and reversing rejection episodes that did not respond to standard therapies.
B-lymphocytes, or B cells, play a large role in human immune response by making immune proteins that attack transplanted organs.
“This has significant implications for transplantation and auto immune disease,” said study co-author Steve Woodle, chief of transplant surgery at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.
Woodle’s team is currently conducting four clinical trials to expand upon these preliminary findings.
The drug’s side effects proved to be both predictable and manageable and toxicity levels were much less than those associated with other anti-cancer agents, the study found.
The study was published in the journal Transplantation.
Cancer drug reverses transplant rejection, study says
