Beneficial effect of preoperative mycophenolate mofetil in murine corneal transplantation

To investigate the effect of preoperative mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) on al lograft survival in a murine corneal transplantation model. Corneal graftin g was performed from Brown Norway to Lewis rats. Groups were divided as fol lows: Rats that received syngeneic or allogeneic grafts without therapy ser ved as controls. MMF treatment was either started 7 days prior to transplan tation and continued for 14 postoperative days (POD) or started at the day of corneal grafting until POD 14. MMF (20 mg/kg) administered postoperative ly had no significant beneficial effect on corneal graft survival when comp ared with controls. However, the group receiving 40 mg/kg MMF postoperative ly showed a statistically significant prolonged graft survival. A 1-week pr eoperative administration of 20 mg/kg MMF allowed superior graft survival. Priming the immune system of corneal transplant recipients preoperatively w ith MMF proved to be a beneficial therapeutic regimen for prolonging cornea l allograft survival in rats.