Question

Milly has just received a kidney transplant and is taking cyclosporin. What exactly does this medication do, and how does it do this?

Answer 1

Cyclosporin is an immunosuppressant drug which prevents the body from mounting an immunological response against the transplanted kidney.

Explanation:

After a transplant surgery, a major risk is the rejection of the transplanted organ by the recipient's immune system which would ordinarily recognise the transplanted organ as foreign.

Cyclosporin's mechanism of action is to suppress the activity and growth of T lymphocytes which are the first line of defence in the immune system. This prevents the other stages of the immune system from getting activated and hence allows the transplanted organ to function in the recipient.

The side-effect, of course, is that Milly would be prone to other common infections much more easily since her immune system is suppressed, so she has to take extra care to avoid possible infection as she will need to take the drug for life.