Opportunistic infections after conversion to belatacept in kidney transplantation

Abstract Background Belatacept (bela) rescue therapy seems to be a valuable option for calcineurin inhibitor chronic toxicity in kidney transplantation. Nevertheless, the risk of infection associated with bela is not well reported. Methods We report the rate of opportunistic infections (OPI) after a switch to bela in a multicentric cohort of 280 kidney transplant patients. Results Forty-two OPI occurred in 34 patients (12.1%), on average 10.8 ± 11.3 months after the switch. With a cumulative exposure of 5128 months of bela treatment, we found an incidence of 0.008 OPI/month of exposure, and 9.8 OPI/100 person-years. The most common OPI was cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in 18/42 OPI (42.9%) and pneumocystis pneumonia in 12/42 OPI (28.6%). Two patients presented a progressive multifocal leucoencephalopathy and two patients developed a cerebral Epstein–Barr virus-induced post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease. OPI led to death in 9/34 patients (26.5%) and graft failure in 4/34 patients (11.8%). In multivariate analysis, estimated glomerular filtration rate