Mycophenolic acid versus azathioprine as primary immunosuppression for kidney transplant recipients.

CONCLUSIONS: MMF was superior to AZA for improvement of graft survival and prevention of acute rejection after kidney transplantation. These benefits must be weighed against potential harms such as tissue-invasive CMV disease. However, assessment of the evidence on safety outcomes was limited due to rare events in the observation periods of the studies (e.g. malignancies) and inconsistent reporting and definitions (e.g. infections, adverse events). Thus, balancing benefits and harms of the two drugs remains a major task of the transplant physician to decide which agent the individual patient should be started on.
PMID: 26633102 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews - December 3, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Wagner M, Earley AK, Webster AC, Schmid CH, Balk EM, Uhlig K Tags: Cochrane Database Syst Rev Source Type: research