The management of heart transplant recipients treated with cyclosporine in Ireland: monitoring of cyclosporine concentrations in blood.

Thirty seven cardiac transplants have taken place at the National Cardiac Centre in Ireland since 1985. Data is presented on three still-surviving male patients aged 19 to 42 who received cardiac transplants in 1985 and 1986. Circulating levels of blood cyclosporine were measured by high pressure liquid chromatography and radioimmunoassay; plasma creatinine and bilirubin were also measured. In one of these patients the distribution of cyclosporine in blood was measured by high pressure liquid chromatography in a long term study. For all three patients cyclosporine levels in blood were compared with the daily dose of cyclosporine and biochemical and histopathological parameters.