Positive pre‐transplant flow‐panel reactive antibody detected after accelerated acute rejection with negative pre‐transplant flow crossmatch

A 30-yr-old woman underwent kidney transplantation from a flow cytometric lymphocyte crossmatch-negative donor. Immunosuppression consisted of tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetil, basiliximab and three days of steroid. On day 5 post-transplant, she developed acute rejection and underwent anti-rejection therapy consisting of steroid pulse and deoxy-spurgualin. Retrospective analyses of anti-human leukocyte antigen antibody revealed high flow panel reactive antibody (PRA) in the pre-transplant serum without donor specific antibody (DSA) and positive DSA at the time of rejection. Anti-rejection therapy was successful in treating cellular rejection but her graft function further deteriorated after three months post-transplant and graft biopsy revealed chronic allograft nephropathy with positive staining for C4d in peritubular capillary, suggesting the presence of chronic antibody-mediated rejection. Pre-transplant positive flow PRA without DSA may also be a risk for acute and chronic rejection.