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NCF-Funded Researcher Finds Cancer Drug Helps Post-Transplant

Dr. Alessia Fornoni, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, and her team discovered an interesting finding when studying young patients with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) undergoing a kidney transplant.

FSGS is a disease that affects the kidney’s filtration system allowing valuable proteins needed for good health to escape from circulating blood into the urine.  FSGS is one the major primary kidney diseases causing end stage renal disease requiring dialysis and/or kidney transplant.  A major problem of patients with FSGS receiving a kidney transplant is a very high risk for recurrence of FSGS leading to loss of the transplanted organ. Fornoni identified that the drug rituximab, used primarily for cancer treatment, can help reduce the post-transplant recurrence of FSGS.

Fornoni’s research showed that post-transplant patients who received rituximab had a 26 percent chance of recurrence, compared to a 64 percent recurrence rate for patients who didn’t take the drug. Fornoni’s research also suggests that a test for the prediction of recurrent FSGS could be developed in the pre-transplant setting and help guide patient-specific