Ten patients with familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) and histologically confirmed amyloidosis received cadaver kidney transplants for treatment of terminal renal disease. Colchicine, 1 mg daily, was included in the routine postoperative regimen from 1974 for amyloidotic patients. Graft and patient survival were compared with ten nonamyloidotic recipients of renal grafts matched for age, sex, type of allograft, and HLA compatibility. In the FMF group, five of ten grafts have survived from 20 to 64 months; in the control group, six of ten. While only recipients with functioning grafts survived in the FMF group, patient survival in the control group is eight of ten after one year. In all five FMF survivors, graft function is satisfactory, proteinuria is absent, and blood creatinine levels are normal. Amyloid involvement of an allograft was documented 16 months after transplantation in the only patient whose maintenance colchicine dosage had been reduced to 0.5 mg daily.
(Arch Intern Med 139:1135-1138, 1979)