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Pre-transplant sera of 586 renal graft recipients were tested to investigate whether soluble CD30 (sCD30) is a useful predictor of some severe clinical episodes post-transplant. Correlation analysis showed sCD30 level was significantly correlated with acute rejection (AR) (r=0.242, P<0.001), graft loss (r=0.162, P<0.001), and pneumonia (r=-0.147, P<0.001). Higher sCD30 levels were observed in patients with AR than the others (180.0+/-89.1 vs. 135.3+/-72.7U/ml, P<0.001). And patients with pneumonia had significantly lower pre-transplant sCD30 level than the others (123.2+/-75.5 vs. 150.7+/-79.6U/ml, P=0.003). Based on statistical results, 120 and 240U/ml were selected as the optimal couple of cut-off value to divide patients into three groups: Group High (H), Group Intermedial (I) and Group Low (L). The lowest AR rate of 17.4% was observed in Group L (P<0.001). Significant difference of AR rate was also observed between Group I (29.2%) and H (42.9%) (P<0.001). There were much more patients suffering pneumonia in Group L (P=0.001). Significantly lower 5-year patient survival rate (79.4%) was observed in Group H (P=0.016). These data showed that elevated pre-transplant sCD30 level of renal allograft recipients may reflect an immune state detrimental for renal allograft survival. But sCD30 level lower than <120U/ml may be associated with a high risk of pneumonia. Pre-transplant sCD30 level is an independent predictor of acute rejection, lung infection, even graft survival. Suitable immunosuppression protocol should be selected according to pre-transplant sCD30 level in an attempt to promote patient and graft survival., (Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Identification of renal graft candidates at high risk of impending acute rejection (AR) and graft loss may be helpful for patient-tailored immunosuppressive regimens and renal graft survival. To investigate the feasibility with soluble CD30 (sCD30) as predictor of AR, sCD30 levels of 70 patients were detected on day 0 pre-transplant and day 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 14, 21, and 30 post-transplant. AR episodes in 6 months were recorded and then patients were divided into Group AR (n=11) and Group UC (n=59). Results showed that the patients had higher pre-transplant sCD30 levels than healthy people. A significant decrease of sCD30 was observed on the first day post-transplant and continued until day 14 post-transplant. Soluble CD30 presented a stable level from day 14 to 30 post-transplant. Pre-transplant sCD30 levels of Group AR were much higher than those of Group UC (P<0.001). Patients of Group AR also had higher sCD30 levels than those of Group UC on day 1, 3, 5, 7, 10 and 14 (P<0.001). The sCD30 level presented a significantly delayed decrease in the patients of Group AR. Statistical results showed that the highest value of area under ROC curve (0.95) was obtained on day 5 post-transplant, suggesting that sCD30 levels on day 5 are of high predictive value. Therefore, sCD30 level may be a good marker of increased alloreactivity and of significant predictive value. It's necessary to monitor the variation of sCD30 in the early period post-transplant.