Acute Phase Proteins in Transplant Patients – Review

This review is to evaluate the usefulness of acute phase proteins in monitoring transplant patients. Acute phase reaction is a non-specific immune response evoked by many different stimuli. Acute phase proteins (APPs) that play an important role in this reaction help to restore homeostasis. APPs concentration and glycosylation changes during acute and chronic inflammation are commonly known and they became a useful diagnostic tool to distinguish these two stages. They are very sensitive markers of inflammation though the reaction is not specific. The main problem in transplantology is to distinguish between the graft rejection and bacterial or viral inflammation. The best and non-invasive markers of rejection in contrast to bacterial inflammation that in many cases accompanies transplantation are still being searched. APPs that may be regarded as markers of alteration in the cytokine network allow to control the survival of transplants under the immunosuppressive therapy. They are also useful markers of early acute and chronic rejection and also of different posttransplant complications. The changes of APPs in serum of transplant patients are not organ specific, but their specificity becomes much better when correlated with other biochemical markers.