A control study of steroid withdrawal protection strategy after kidney transplantation in children / 中华儿科杂志

Objective: To study the influence of steroid withdrawal protection strategy on height growth in pediatric patients after kidney transplantation. Methods: The prospective cohort study enrolled 40 stage 5 chronic kidney disease children receiving kidney transplantation from July 2017 to September 2022 at Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center. Based on the primary preoperative disease, patients with immune abnormality-associated glomerular diseases or unknown causes were assigned to the steroid maintenance group, in which patients received steroid tapering within 3 months after surgery to a maintenance dose of 2.5 to 5.0 mg/d. While patients with hereditary kidney disease or congenital urinary malformations were assigned to the steroid withdrawal group, in which patients had steroids tapered off within 3 months. The characteristics of height catch-up growth and clinical data were compared between the 2 groups at baseline, 6, 12, 18 and 24 months after kidney transplantation. T-test, repeated measurement of variance analysis, Mann-Whitney U test, and Fisher exact test were used for the comparison between the 2 groups. Results: Among the 40 children, 17 were males, 23 were females, 25 were in the steroid withdraw group ((7.8±2.8) years old when receiving kidney transplantation) and 15 cases were in the steroid maintenance group ((7.6±3.5) years old when receiving kidney transplantation). The study population was followed up for (26±12) months. The total dose per unit body weight of steroids in the steroid withdrawal group was lower than that in the steroid maintenance group ((0.13±0.06) vs. (0.36±0.19) mg/(kg·d), t=5.83, P<0.001). The height catch-up rate (ΔHtSDS) in the first year after kidney transplantation in the steroid withdraw and steroid maintenance groups was 1.0 (0.7, 1.4) and 0.4 (0.1, 1.0), respectively; in the second year, the ΔHtSDS in the steroid withdraw group was significantly higher than that in the steroid maintenance group (1.1 (0.2, 1.7) vs. 0.3 (0, 0.8), U=28.00, P=0.039). The HtSDS in the steroid withdrawal group at the five follow-up time points was -2.5±0.8, -2.0±0.8, -1.5±0.8, -1.3±0.9 and -0.5±0.3, respectively, while in the steroid maintenance was -2.4±1.3, -2.2±1.1, -2.0±1.0, -1.8±1.0 and -1.6±1.0, respectively. There were statistically significant differences in HtSDS at different follow-up time points in both 2 groups (F=19.81, P<0.01), but no statistical differences in overall impact between the 2 groups (F=1.13, P=0.204). The steroid treatment was interaction with the increase of follow-up time (F=3.62, P=0.009). At the 24th month after transplantation, the HtSDS in the steroid withdrawal group was significantly higher than that in the steroid maintenance group (P=0.047). Six patients in the steroid withdrawal group experienced antibody-mediated immune rejection (AMR), while 3 did in the steroid maintenance group. Moreover, there was no significant difference in AMR between the two groups (χ2=0.06, P=0.814). Conclusion: The steroid withdrawal protection strategy favors the height catch-up growth in pediatric patients after kidney transplantation and does not increase the risk of postoperative antibody-mediated immune rejection.

Clinical application of Tacrolimus to infant steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome / 中华实用儿科临床杂志

Objective To analyze the peculiarity of infants steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome (SRNS) and to assess the efficacy,side-effect and relapse of various of Tacrolimus prescribed in infants SRNS.Methods A total of 76 case of infant SRNS from August 2012 to August 2015 in Guangzhou Weman and Children's Medical Center grouped into oral Tacrolimus (TAC group),Methyprenisolone pulse therapy (MP group) and Methyprenisolong combined Cyclophosphamide(CTX) pulse therapy(MP + CTX group),were observed for 1 year,and the urine protein excretion,renal function (CCr),blood glucose (B G),urine retinal-binding-protein (URBP),lymphocyte count etc.were recorded and the situation of infection and relapse regularly were monitored regularly.The data were retrospectively analyzed by the statistical method.Results All SRNS children underwent kidney biopsy,and 36 cases of minimal change disease,32 cases of mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis and 8 cases of focal segmental glome-rulosclerosis were contained in the patients.The pathological constituent ratios were not obviously different among these 3 groups.By 6-month follow-up,the complete remission ratio of TAC group was 63.64％,the total remission ratio was 95.45％,which were remarkably higher than those of MP group (26.09％,60.87％) and MP + CTX group (41.94％,74.19％);the urine protein excretion of TAC group [(7.8 ± 8.6) mg/(kg · d)] was distinctly lower than that of pretreatment and lower than that of MP group [(144.2 ± 118.3) mg/(kg · d)],and lower than that of MP + CTX group [(91.3 ± 87.4) mg/(kg · d)],and the difference was significant (F =22.69,P ＜ 0.05).The remission time of TAC group was about 2 months,that of other two groups was about 3 months.By 1-year follow-up,the lymphocyte counts including total T-cell (CD3 +),the helper T-cell (CD4 +) and the inhibited T-cell (CD8 +) of TAC group decreased obviously(all P ＜ 0.01),which were extremely lower than those of the M P group and MP + CTX group,and there were significant differences (all P ＜ 0.05).By 1-year follow-up,the person-time of infection existed superior to the other 2 groups,TAC group was compared with MP plus group,the rank sum was 348.5 (U =-3.69,P ＜ 0.01);compared with MP + CTX plus group,the rank sum was 369.5 (U =-4.18,P ＜ 0.01).During the observation the URBP of TAC group was distinctly higher than that of the MP group and the MP + CTX group [(13.77 ± 19.19) mg/L vs.(2.50 ± 1.77) mg/L,(2.06 ±3.63) mg/L],and the differences were significant(t =3.16,2.99,all P ＜0.05);the TAC group with BG and CCr maintained stably.Conclusions Tacrolimus shows its own advantages of more reliable effect and less side-effect in the infants with SRNS over MP therapy and MP combined CTX therapy,but it could not lessen the recurrence of the disease,and its long-term prognosis is still not very clear.