Active enhancement of canine liver allografts--effect of pretreatment with prednisolone and donor-specific antigen.

We investigated the active enhancement of liver allografts in 44 pairs of beagle dogs by pretreatment with semisoluble and soluble donor-specific spleen antigens. If the antigen were administered together with prednisolone, time of survival was significantly prolonged--with soluble antigen by 36.8 +/- 5.9 days and with semisoluble antigen by more than 3 years. Antigen pretreatment alone or antigen in combination with postoperative treatment of minimal immunosuppressive drugs had no significant effects. We found no correlation between the titer of lymphocytotoxic antibodies in the serum of recipients at the time of transplantation and survival times.