The authors of the study note that regardless of the lack of superiority of rabbit antithymocyte globulin vs. basiliximab, the results of this study indicate that steroid withdrawal after induction therapy for patients with a low immunological risk profile can be achieved without loss of efficacy and is advantageous in regard to post-transplantation diabetes incidence.
An editorial notes that the when considering the results of this study, one must take into account that most patients in this trial (96.1%) had only received their first transplant and the percentage of patients with 0% panel-reactive antibodies before transplantation was high (88•1%). Furthermore, the average cold-ischaemia time of the deceased donors was low (710 min), which may explain the success of this trial compared to others.