TACROLIMUS TRANSPLANT

Pre-Transplant Assessment of Tacrolimus Blood Level Concentration, as a Predictor of Tacrolimus Dose Requirements After Kidney Transplantation - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.govThe purpose of this study is to evaluate two groups of kidney transplant recipients, to determine the proportion of patients that achieve therapeutic blood concentrations of tacrolimus by Day 3 after transplantation. Patients in one group will be treated with tacrolimus according current clinical practice. The other group will have a pre-transplant assessment of their tacrolimus blood level concentration that will be used to guide post-transplantation tacrolimus dosing. Tacrolimus is a medicine that slows down the body's immune system. For this reason, it works as an anti-rejection medicine.This study is a multicentre, open-label, prospective, 2-arm, phase IV study of tacrolimus in renal transplant recipients. Patients will be randomized to receive current clinical practice or to have a pre-transplant pharmacokinetic assessment of tacrolimus metabolism that will be used to guide post-transplantation tacrolimus dosing, with the aim of increasing the proportion of patients that achieve a tacrolimus whole blood trough level of 10 ng/mL by Day 3 post-transplantation. Patients randomized to Group 1 will take a single dose of tacrolimus (0.1 mg/kg) prior to transplantation and a blood sample will be taken to determine tacrolimus whole blood concentration at 2 hours post-dose. The result of this blood sample will be used to guide tacrolimus dosing post-transplantation. Patients that return a low tacrolimus blood concentration will have a post-transplantation starting dose of up to 0.3 mg/kg/day, whereas patients that return a high tacrolimus blood concentration will have a post-transplantation starting dose of 0.1 mg/kg/day.