Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Decrease in T lymphocyte after renal transplantation can easily lead to pneumonia. As a key target organ, it is important to control pneumonia, especially severe pneumonia, which becomes a key for patient’s prognosis following renal transplantation.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of immunoglobulin against pneumonia after renal transplantation based on decreased T lymphocytes.
METHODS: Thirty patients accepting renal transplantation within six month were enrolled, and randomly divided into treatment group (15 cases) and control group (15 cases). All the patients were received immunosuppressive agents. The patients in the treatment group were treated with immunoglobulin 0.2 g/(kg•d), twice per day, and other therapy options were similar to the control group. The incidence of pulmonary infection, renal function and T lymphocyte level were detected.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The incidence of ordinary pneumonia and severe pneumonia and the mortality in the treatment group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P < 0.05). CD4⁺ T lymphocyte and CD4⁺/CD8⁺ T lymphocytes subsets were significantly increased (P < 0.01), and CD4⁺ T lymphocyte subsets was significantly higher in 7, 14, 21 day as compared to the baseline (P < 0.01), but there was no change in renal function. Our findings suggested that patients treated with immunoglobulin after renal transplantation can improve the level of T lymphocytes, immune function and reduce the incidence of pulmonary infection.