​KTD-innov project annual report: follow-up of 800 patients and a strong cooperation

The KTD-innov consortium annual meeting took place on the 7th of February. The project partners came from different regions of France and met to review the project’s progress and up-coming steps.

The first news of this meeting: a significant milestone in the KTD-innov research project has just been reached with the recruitment of more than 800 kidney transplant patients in transplant centres in Bordeaux, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes, Paris and Toulouse. The recruitment target has been met thanks to the patient volunteers who agreed to take part in this study. These patients will be monitored within the framework of the project for 12 months following their transplantation. 

The next milestone is the collection and analysis of blood, urine and biopsy samples. The annual meeting was an opportunity to review overall coordination between the transplant centres - where samples are collected - and the analytical platforms. 

​This collaborative research project allows for the implementation of standardised collection processes between the different centres, thereby improving the quality of the samples and thus the quality of the analytical results.

In the meantime, over the past two years, the scientists involved in this French research project have been working to improve the analysis methods and the technical know-how of their teams. They have already optimised their ability to process samples, as well as the quality of the results that are and will be produced.

In the coming months, the researchers involved in the KTD-innov study will face many challenges. In particular, the compilation of analytical data from the samples in compliance with the existing regulations. With the integration of data collected from previous studies, the final database will contain monitoring information from more than 5,000 kidney transplants.

By 2022, the objective to be achieved is the development of an algorithm to use this database for research purposes. The design of a visual interface is also planned to compare the status of one transplant patient to another. The long-term goal is to deploy this algorithm to physicians as a diagnostic system to predict rejection of the kidney transplant.

---