Combined Bone Marrow and Renal Transplantation for Hematologic Disorders With End Stage Renal Disease

The induction of transplantation tolerance involves the specific elimination of the immune response to the transplant but not to other antigens. In the realm of kidney transplantation, tolerance means that the recipient is unable to detect the donor transplant kidney as foreign, and therefore the recipient is unable to reject the kidney. Donor bone marrow engraftment leads to kidney graft tolerance in animal models. Renal failure is a major complication of multiple myeloma and AL amyloidosis for which the only known cure is allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Standard bone marrow transplantation is associated with prohibitive toxicities in patients with end stage renal disease, and is generally not considered an option for those patients. Patients with multiple myeloma and AL amyloidosis are excluded from conventional renal transplantation protocols because of their underlying malignancy. A less toxic bone marrow transplantation protocol, utilizing low dose total body irradiation and anti-thymocyte globulin, combined with renal transplantation, could provide an opportunity for cure of the myeloma or amyloidosis and correction of end stage renal disease. In addition, successful marrow engraftment may be expected to lead to a state of tolerance. Successful implementation of tolerance would be a major benefit to transplant recipients. The significance of developing tolerance is that the patient could be spared the disabling complications of indefinite immunosuppression, which include infections, cataracts, osteoporosis, diabetes, atherosclerosis, hypertension, and malignancy.