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Transplants: blood test to test for rejection
Hi Transplants,
Has anyone had a blood test to test for signs of rejection? The one my nephrologist suggested is called Allosure by CareDx as an alternative tool to be used as a less invasive way to watch for rejection than invasive protocol biopsies. Have you ever heard of a blood test like this or has your doctor recommended a blood test like that to you?
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@stolson1, similar to what @maggieinfp said. Standard blood tests (like creatinine, blood counts) and advanced molecular tests, such as those measuring donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA) with assays like AlloSure and AlloMap (gene expression), can detect organ rejection early, often before symptoms appear, identifying immune activity and organ stress to fine-tune immunosuppression medications.
Sounds like you and your transplant team are doing careful monitoring to avoid rejection. 🙂
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4 ReactionsI get blood work every month sometimes every 2 weeks and and after 3 years every 2 months and I never had a biopsy, my team at USC/Keck keeps a very close eye on me I believe this is normal procedure
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3 Reactions@stolson1
I've not experienced any rejection. I'm 16 years out from transplant, and currently have my routine labs drawn at 3 month intervals. It is important for us to consistently take our medications, and to adhere to our lab schedule, because that is how our transplant team can 'see' how our transplanted organ is working, and determine whether our dose of anti-rejection medication sufficient for us. My experience has been that over time my actual dose of tacrolimus have slowly needed to be reduced based results of the routine testing.
I had several liver biopsies in the beginning, but have been told that I would not need any unless something showed up. I learned that rejection, if it occurred, would be detected by my transplant with the routine labs. Then they would treat me accordingly.
Next time you see your transplant team, why don't you ask them how they would detect any rejection and how they would treat it?