ADVANTAGES OF DONOR-SPECIFIC BLOOD-TRANSFUSION IN THE RAT VIA THE PORTAL-VEIN FOR RENAL-TRANSPLANTATION

It is well known that blood transfusion can promote immune unresponsiveness to a renal allograft in both animals and humans. The present study examined the differences between either portal venous (PV) or intravenous (IV) donorspecific transfusion (DST) alone on the survival of rat renal allografts without other immunosuppression. Seven days before LEW (RT11) renal transplantation, recipient WKA rats (RT1u) were inoculated with graded doses (1.0 to 0.0001 mL) of LEW whole blood through either the portal vein or the tail vein. A dose of 0.001 mL whole blood PV resulted in significantly greater prolongation of renal allograft survival than occurred with IV preimmunization (38.5 ± 10.6 days v 12.5 ± 2.7 days). Although recipient survival was not significantly different for the two routes for a lower dose (0.1 mL) of whole blood preimmunization 7 days before transplantation, azotemia and rejection were prevented when the PV route, but not the IV route, was used. However, when 0.1 mL of whole blood was administered 5 days before transplantation, survival was prolonged only in animals preimmunized by the PV route (54.7 ± 14.0 days v 14.3 ± 4.0 days). In the stronger reciprocal combination of WKA to LEW, there was an advantage of PV with 0.1 mL whole blood, but not with 1 mL. These results indicate that the beneficial effects of DST on renal allograft survival can be obtained when a smaller volume of blood is given via the PV rather than the IV route and a shorter interval elapses between preimmunization and transplantation. © 1993, National Kidney Foundation, Inc.. All rights reserved.