Evaluation of CD30 serum concentrations in pre and posttransplant patients- a study on the renal transplant recipients of Kashmir

Abstract

CD30 is a member of the TNF receptor family that is expressed on CD4+ and CD8+ activated T cells. It is released into blood stream where it can be used as a biomarker for the prediction of allograft rejections in kidney transplant recipients. Thus, irreversible damage caused by rejection could be timely diagnosed and treated. The aim of this study was to evaluate CD30 serum concentrations in pre and post renal transplant patients. Serum soluble CD30 levels were measured with ELISA in renal allograft recipients (n=75) and in healthy controls (n=50). sCD30 levels in patients (Mean±SD:25.63±13.84 ng/ml) before transplantation was significantly higher to that of healthy controls (Mean± SD: 13.44± 5.01 ng/ml), P=0.0001, 95%CI (6.96-17.41). The sCD30 levels of post-transplant serum samples (Mean±SD: 26.81±32.40ng/ml) versus the controls depicted statistical significance, P=0.015, 95%CI = (-24.15 – 2.5). Eventhough, mean serum sCD30 values of both pretransplants and posttransplants were not found to be high, the healthy controls were found to be having lower values. On comparing pre and their corresponding post 1st month transplant samples, sCD30 values were not found to be significant, P= 0.89, 95%CI= (-19.1-16.8). Our data does not support the idea of serum sCD30 being used as a potential marker for the renal allograft rejection as the data doesn’t provide clinically sufficient information concerning the risk of rejection after the kidney transplantation is done. This is attributed to the high variation of sCD30 levels assessed at different time intervals following the transplantation.