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Cornerstone immunosuppression with Prograf and successful steroid withdrawal/avoidance yields health benefits in kidney and liver transplantationBerlin, Germany, June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The results of several new trials reported recently at the American Transplant Congress (ATC; May 30 to June 4 2003, Washington, DC) and at the World Congress of Nephrology (WCN; June 8-12 2003, Berlin) confirm that cornerstone immunosuppression with Prograf(r) (tacrolimus) permits the successful withdrawal or avoidance of corticosteroids - an all-important goal in transplantation, thus providing a number of health-related benefits to kidney or liver transplant patients. Moreover, a key finding from many of the studies was that corticosteroid withdrawal/avoidance was not associated with an increased risk of acute rejection, a primary concern for many transplant physicians.The 6-month results of a study presented by Dr Leszek Paczek (Transplantation Institute, Warsaw, Poland) at the WCN revealed that withdrawing steroids from Prograf(r) based regimens in renal transplant patients free from steroid-resistant rejection and with stable renal function at 3 months post-transplant was not associated with any increased risk of acute rejection.(1) In this multicentre study comparing the steroid-sparing potential of Prograf(r) in combination with either mycophenolate mofetil (MMF; n=243) or azathioprine (n=246), the incidence of biopsy-proven acute rejection between months 4 and 6 among all steroid-withdrawal patients - regardless of whether they were receiving Prograf(r) plus MMF or azathioprine - was very low, about 1.9%. Moreover, renal function at 6 months was excellent. Another key finding was that the overall 6-month incidence of biopsy-proven acute rejection was significantly lower in patients randomised to treatment with Prograf(r) plus MMF versus Prograf(r) plus azathioprine (18.9% vs 26.8%, respectively; p=0.