Augmentation of chimerism in whole organ recipients by simultaneous infusion of donor bone marrow cells.

We had previously demonstrated the persistence of donor leukocytes in the peripheral blood and tissues of long-surviving kidney and live- recipients who had stable graft function many years after transplantation.- Donor cell chimerism has since been noted by other investigators in recipients of heart, liver, kidney, and lung transplants. In an attempt to augment chimerism, and thereby facilitate graft function, we initiated a prospective trial to enhance this phenomenon by infusing 3 × l08/kg unaltered donor bone marrow cells perioperatively into an unmodified recipient of whole organ from the same donor. Additionally, 53 recipients of whole organ alone were monitored as controls. Reported herein are the first 20 of 64 study patients and 33 of 53 control patients who are more than 120 days posttransplantation.