Immune responsiveness and renal transplantation.

: Children and young adults produce lymphocytotoxic antibodies in response to blood transfusions more frequently than older patients. Young transplant recipients also have a higher incidence of rejection episodes, which lends support to the concept that young age is associated with a state of heightened immune responsiveness to alloantigens. Heightened immune responsiveness, however, does not explain the lower graft survival reported for Black transplant recipients. Black recipients have an increased rate of DGF, whose origin remains to be elucidated.