It has seen that little mistake in immunosuppressive therapy in young kidney-graft patients can develop serious issues. In fact, for this age group, low-adherence to medication is a major reason behind the high level of organ rejection. To eliminate this issue, a team consisting transplant specialists and researchers from eight leading pediatric medical centres from the U.S. and Canada have developed a clinical trial named TAKE-IT intervention. The team was headed by Dr Bethany Foster, a pediatric nephrologist, and scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). The new study has been published in The American Journal of Kidney Diseases (AJKD).
Dr Foster, professor of Medicine at McGill University stated, “Missing your anti-rejection medicine, even only a few times, can lead to graft failure.” That’s why the team has developed the TAKE-IT intervention. This intervention helps to boost adherence behaviour in the patients by using a combination of electronic medication monitoring and concealing by a personal coach. To test this, the team conducted a study on 169 young adult kidney transplant recipients. All the participants were divided into two groups. The first group which consisted 81 patients were allowed to customize the monitoring system named SimpleMed electronic pillbox. They also provided coaching. The second groups (88 patients) were now allowed to receive electronic messages and instructions.
The result shows that the first group had a 66 percent higher adherence to the anti-rejection medicine than the second group. When the patients develop better adherence level that can lead to better graft survival.
Dr Lorraine Bell, Director of the MUHC Pediatric Renal Transplant Program, stated, “These results are exciting because it proved that a multidisciplinary approach could help teens and young adult to maintain their treatment plan.” He also informed about the benefits of the message and email reminders in this kind of treatments.
