Medication Adherence in Children Who Had a Liver Transplant

During the course of their illness as many as 50% of children who had a liver transplant stop taking their medications. Non-adherence is the most important reason for organ rejection in long term survivors of pediatric liver transplantation. In order to address this important risk-factor effectively, the first step is to evaluate a method that would identify non-adherence in these children. Medication blood levels that are obtained as a part of clinical practice in transplant centers can be used to determine whether the patient is adherent or not. This multi-center observational study tests the ability of an objective measure of adherence to immunosuppressant medications that involves the use of routinely obtained tacrolimus blood levels to predict organ rejection in children who had a liver transplant.