Chronic allograft injury: Mechanisms and potential treatment targets

Improving long-term graft survival remains one of the critical challenges facing kidney transplantation since a great portion of kidney grafts are lost by 10 years after transplantation. Understanding the causes of chronic allograft injury and providing timely therapeutic interventions are essential for improving these outcomes. In this review, we will discuss the recent data that emerged turning down calcineurin inhibitors as the primary cause of long-term graft injury and highlighting the increased importance of non-compliance, antibody-mediated injury, disease recurrence, and BK nephropathy as culprits. We suggest a number of different strategies to better manage kidney transplant recipients that, ultimately, may improve long-term graft survival.