**Contents**


Reprinted from: *J. Clin. Med.* **2021**, *10*, 4359, doi:10.3390/jcm10194359 ................ **75**


Reprinted from: *J. Clin. Med.* **2022**, *11*, 791, doi:10.3390/jcm11030791 ................ **165**

## **About the Editors**

**Charat Thongprayoon** is affiliated with the Mayo Clinic Hospital Rochester. Their research interests include nephrology, electrolytes, acute kidney injury, renal replacement therapy, epidemiology, and outcome studies.

**Wisit Cheungpasitporn** is American-board-certified in nephrology and internal medicine. He completed his nephrology fellowship training at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Cheungpasitporn also completed his additional training at Mayo and has become an expert on kidney transplantation. He also enrolled and completed his postdoctoral diploma in the clinical and translational science (CCaTS) program in 2015. Dr. Cheungpasitporn received the 2016 Donald C. Balfour Research Award, given in recognition of outstanding research as a junior scientist whose primary training is in a clinical field at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, as well as the 2016 William H. J. Summerskill Award, given in recognition of outstanding achievement in research for a clinical fellow at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Cheungpasitporn has been part of Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, since 2020.

**Wisit Kaewput** is affiliated with the Phramongkutklao College of Medicine, Bangkok, Thailand. Their research interests include acute kidney injury, observational studies, statistical analysis, and epidemiology.

## *Editorial* **Progress and Recent Advances in Solid Organ Transplantation**

**Charat Thongprayoon 1, Wisit Kaewput 2, Pattharawin Pattharanitima 3 and Wisit Cheungpasitporn 1,\***


Over the past decade, the number of organ transplants performed worldwide has significantly increased for patients with advanced organ failure [1–5]. In the United States, 41,354 organ transplants were performed in 2021, increasing by 5.9% compared to 2020 [6]. While there have been significant improvements in the short-term survival of solid organ transplant recipients due to advances in immunosuppression and transplant techniques [1,2,7], long-term graft and patient outcomes still lag behind and remain areas for improvement in solid organ transplantation [2].

In this Special Issue, "Progress and Recent Advances in Solid Organ Transplantation", researchers from different disciplines with different expertise and resources highlighted the novelty of their recent investigations in the field of organ transplantation, including issues related to donors, allografts, and patient survival [8–20]. While there have been significant advances in regional and national kidney paired-donation programs in matching incompatible pairs, data sugges<sup>t</sup> that there may be a role for desensitization in select cases to facilitate organ transplantation [21]. In this Special Issue, Weinhard et al. summarized the roles of tocilizumab and desensitization in kidney transplant candidates [18]. In addition to progress in desensitization and preoperative monitoring of donor-specific antibodies, this Special Issue also provided insights into the monitoring and managemen<sup>t</sup> of chronic active antibody-mediated rejection [17]. Furthermore, investigators also shed light on post-transplant complication research, including osteoporotic fractures [9], diarrhea [15], psychological changes [19], and recurrent primary disease [17].

Immunosuppression managemen<sup>t</sup> is essential for patient and graft survival in transplant recipients [22–24], and studies have demonstrated the impacts of tacrolimus metabolism rates on outcomes after transplantation [25–27]. In this Special Issue, Kolonko et al. found the novel findings of influences of body composition parameters assessed by bioimpedance analysis on the tacrolimus metabolism, which may potentially be useful in optimizing initial tacrolimus dosing [10]. Additionally, while fast tacrolimus metabolism is associated with lower renal function after kidney transplantation [26,27], in this Special Issue, Thölking et al. found no significant impact of fast tacrolimus metabolism on dyslipidemia parameters [13].

Better understanding of subgroups of transplant recipients, such as older transplant recipients and Black transplant recipients, can help the transplant community to identify individualized strategies to improve outcomes among these vulnerable populations [11,14,28]. In this Special Issue, Zompolas et al. conducted a retrospective study to evaluate outcomes of 85 kidney transplant recipients aged ≥ 75 years in the Eurotransplant Senior Program from January 2010 to July 2018 at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin in Germany [11]. The investigators demonstrated comparable outcomes among older patients compared to their younger counterparts [11], confirming excellent outcomes, including in patient and graft survival, in carefully selected older kidney transplant recipients

1

**Citation:** Thongprayoon, C.; Kaewput, W.; Pattharanitima, P.; Cheungpasitporn, W. Progress and Recent Advances in Solid Organ Transplantation. *J. Clin. Med.* **2022**, *11*,2112. https://doi.org/10.3390/ jcm11082112

Received: 6 April 2022 Accepted: 8 April 2022 Published: 11 April 2022

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aged ≥ 75 years [29–31]. Lastly, in this Special Issue, we reported outcomes of kidney transplant recipients with sickle cell disease (SCD) from an analysis of the 2000–2019 United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS)/Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Database [14]. In this study, we found that SCD was significantly associated with lower patient survival and death-censored graft survival compared to non-SCD recipients. The findings of our study sugges<sup>t</sup> that urgen<sup>t</sup> future studies are required to identify strategies to improve outcomes in SCD kidney recipients. Additionally, the assignment of risk adjustment for SCD patients should be considered.

In summary, the findings published in this Special Issue provide novelty and additional knowledge and may help the transplant community to ultimately improve the managemen<sup>t</sup> and outcomes of patients with solid organ transplantation.

**Author Contributions:** C.T., W.K., P.P. and W.C. contributed to the outlines of the manuscript. W.C. and C.T. drafted the manuscript. All authors gave comments on the earlier versions of the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
