Adding stem cells to a kidney transplant could get patients off anti-rejection drugs, trial finds [Video]

A novel approach to organ transplantation allowed patients to wean off anti-rejection drugs after two years, according to the results of a phase 3 clinical trial presented Monday.

The drugs, called immunosuppressants, are an essential part of any transplant recipient’s life: They help ensure that the immune system doesn’t attack the donated organ as a “foreign” object, leading to rejection. In doing so, however, they come with a host of toxic side effects, including harming the donated organ and increasing the recipient’s risk of infection and cancer.

And they must be taken for life.

“The holy grail of organ transplantation is achieving tolerance,” said Dr. Dorry Segev, a transplant surgeon at NYU Langone Health in New York City. That is, to be able to transplant people without the need for immunosuppressive drugs.

“When we say tolerance, we’re basically saying can the body accept someone else’s kidney without rejecting the kidney,” said Dr. Sanjeev Akkina, medical director of the kidney transplant program at Loyola …