Clinical characteristics of immune tolerance after pediatric liver transplantation

BACKGROUND: Clinical operational tolerance is the ultimate goal for liver transplantation. This study aimed to investigate the clinical characteristics of immune tolerance after pediatric liver transplantation and to identify the possible predictors. METHODS: The clinical data from 37 cases of pediatric patients 2 year later after liver transplantation surgery in the Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, China, were retrospectively analyzed. According to the status of the current immunosuppressant medications of the patients, they were divided into tolerance (n = 15) and Control (n = 22) groups. The current status regarding prope/operational tolerance was reviewed and screened based on the immunosuppressant medications. RESULTS: The patients in the tolerance group were younger than that of Controls (p < 0.001). The children in the tolerance group experienced no acute rejection episode and exhibited no obvious abnormalities in the liver function during the continuous follow-up period. The primary disease of the tolerance group were more often diagnosed with biliary atresia (p = 0.011), and received with a living donor liver graft (p = 0.005). There were less glomerular function, diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension events presented in the tolerance group compared with the control group, indicating low toxicity profile. CONCLUSION: In the current study, there were really certain quantity of recipients following liver transplantation attained long term immune tolerance, with low toxicity and satisfied liver graft function. The younger age of the recipient and maternal donor seems to promote long-term clinical immune tolerance. Further work in larger series should be required to describe the overall perspective of tolerance.