Inflammation resulting from ischaemia/reperfusion injury can cause kidney graft dysfunction, increase the risk of delayed graft function and possibly reduce long-term graft survival. Remote ischaemic conditioning may protect against ischaemia/reperfusion injury and mitigate the immunological response to the graft. We investigated the immunological effects of remote ischaemic conditioning on kidney transplantation from deceased donors in the randomised CONTEXT study.

Three circulating dendritic cell (DC) subtypes identified in peripheral blood from kidney transplant recipients (myeloid DCs, plasmacytoid DCs, and ILT3+ DCs) were measured at baseline, Day 1, Day 3, Day 5, one month, and three months after transplantation. We also quantified twenty-one cytokines at baseline, Day 1, Day 5, and three months after transplantation.

Neither DC counts nor cytokine levels differed between patients receiving remote ischaemic conditioning and controls; however, several parameters exhibited dynamic and parallel alterations in the two groups over time reflecting the immunological response to the kidney transplantation and immunosuppression.