Medications must be given for the rest of your life to fight rejection. Each person is individual, and each transplant team has preferences for different medications. The anti-rejection medications most commonly used include:

• cyclosporine
• tacrolimus
• azathioprine
• mycophenolate mofetil
• prednisone
• OKT3
• antithymocyte Ig (ATGAM)

New anti-rejection medications are continually being approved. Physicians tailor drug regimes to meet the needs of each individual patient.

Usually several anti-rejection medications are given initially. The doses of these medications may change frequently as your response to them changes. Because anti-rejection medications affect the immune system, persons who receive a transplant will be at higher risk for infections. A balance must be maintained between preventing rejection and making you very susceptible to infection. Blood tests to measure the amount of medication in the body are done periodically to make sure you do not get too much or too little of the medications. White blood cells are also an important indicator of how much medication you need.

This risk of infection is especially great in the first few months because higher doses of anti-rejection medications are given during this time. You will most likely need to take medications to prevent other infections from occurring.