A KIDNEY transplant may save your life, but it comes at a cost: the immunosuppressant drugs taken to stop your body rejecting the organ can leave you more vulnerable to infections and boost your risk of cancer. But there may soon be a way to identify patients whose bodies have accepted their transplants, meaning they could reduce their drug intake, or stop altogether.
“At the moment immunosuppressants are very much drugs for life,” says Robert Lechler of Kings College London. He estimates that the immune systems of up to one-fifth of kidney-transplant recipients may eventually learn to tolerate their new organ. However, as such tolerance has…
