Despite significant improvement in the rates of acute allograft rejection, proportionate improvements in kidney allograft longevity have not been realized, and are a source of intense research efforts. Emerging translational data and natural history studies suggest a role for anti-donor immune mechanisms in a majority of cases of allograft loss without patient death, even when overt evidence of acute rejection is not identified. At the level of the donor and recipient genome, differences in highly polymorphic HLA genes are routinely evaluated between donor and recipient pairs as part of organ allocation process, and utilized for patient-tailored induction and maintenance immunosuppression. However, a growing body of data have characterized specific variants in donor and recipient genes, outside of HLA loci, that induce phenotypic changes in donor organs or the recipient immune system, impacting transplant outcomes. Newer mechanisms for “mismatches” in these non-HLA loci have also been proposed during donor–recipient genome interactions with transplantation. Here, we review important recent data evaluating the role of non-HLA genetic loci and genome-wide donor-recipient mismatches in kidney allograft outcomes.
This study presents the demographics, clinical spectrum, and outcome of patients with congenital factor VII (FVII) deficiency at a tertiary care center over a period of 12 years. Of the 49 patients, 27 (55%) patients were males. Consanguinity was found in 92% of the patients. The median age of symptom onset was 2.4 (interquartile range [IQR]: 1.1-6.5) years with a median age of 5.8 (IQR: 3.1-10) years at diagnosis. Life-threatening complications like intracranial bleeding (ICB) and intra-abdominal bleeding (IAB) were observed in 8 (16.4%) patients. We found that 11 (55%) of the 20 patients with FVII coagulant activity (FVIIc) <1% were either asymptomatic or showed mild phenotype. In contrast, 9 (53%) of the 17 patients with FVIIc >5% were affected by severe symptoms. Age <1 year was the only identified risk factor associated with development of life-threatening bleeding episodes (P = .042; odds ratio 6.46). Overall, 4 (8.2%) died as a consequence of ICB (3 patients) and IAB (1 patient).
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