The main objective of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of eculizumab to prevent AMR in sensitized recipients of living donor kidney transplants requiring desensitization therapy prior to transplantation. The primary endpoint focused on acute AMR during the first 9 weeks post-transplantation.
Patients were to be vaccinated against N. meningitidis at least 14 days prior to study drug initiation and revaccinated 30 days later. If not vaccinated 14 days prior, prophylactic antibiotics were to be administered. Pre-transplant infectious disease assessment was to be performed as part of the screening assessment.
Patients were to undergo desensitization therapy according to the practice of the local transplant center prior to transplantation, and this desensitization practice was to be uniformly applied for all patients at that center throughout the study. The actual length of desensitization for an individual patient was based on the clinical judgment of the Transplant Center team. Rituximab was prohibited in all patients as part of the pre-transplantation desensitization therapy due to potential pharmacodynamic interactions.
The control group was designed to test eculizumab against the best available care (referred to as standard of care, or SOC) consisting of plasmapheresis (PP) and/or intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg). The best available care consisting of PP and IVIg was chosen because these modalities combined represented the most prevalent therapy reported in the literature and were the best available therapies at the time of this protocol's inception as per the transplant community.
