March 5, 2012
The ITN524ST-CTOT12 ARTIST study on renal transplantation and the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) signature of tolerance, recently met the target enrollment of 250 participants. This collaborative study between the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) and the Clinical Trials in Organ Transplantation (CTOT) consortium, led by Drs. Kenneth Newell (Emory University), Laurence Turka (Harvard University), and Anil Chandraker (Brigham and Women’s Hospital), is an observational study for people who received a kidney transplant within the past 1 to 5 years.
A previous ITN registry study identified a rare group of people whose immune system has accepted their transplant without continued use of immunosuppressive drugs. Researchers have found that these patients have a unique pattern of cells and genes expressed in their blood compared to other transplant patients.
The goal of the ARTIST study is to find out if there are other transplant patients who are taking immunosuppression and who also show this pattern of genes. If there are others, then this pattern may one day be useful in identifying transplant patients who could reduce the dose of immunosuppression they need without fear of rejection. At least 25 participants are renal transplant recipients who received induction therapy with Campath, and at least 25 participants are renal transplant recipients who are receiving sirolimus or everolimus at time of enrollment and who have not received calcineurin inhibitors for at least 30 days prior to enrollment.
The ARTIST study was initiated in October 2010 and is being conducted at eight clinical research sites in the U.S. including the Cleveland Clinic, Emory University, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, University of California – San Francisco, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Northwestern University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the University of Alabama.
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