| Summary: | The objective of this study was to compare outcomes between basiliximab and low-dose r-ATG in living donor kidney transplantation recipients with low immunological risk. Patients in the low-dose r-ATG group received 1.5 mg/kg of r-ATG for 3 days (total 4.5 mg/kg). Graft survival, patient survival, acute rejection, <i>de novo</i> donor specific antibody (DSA), estimated glomerular filtration rate (e-GFR) changes, and infection status were compared. Among 268 patients, 37 received r-ATG, and 231 received basiliximab. There was no noticeable difference in the graft failure rate (r-ATG vs. basiliximab: 2.7% vs. 4.8%) or rejection (51.4% vs. 45.9%). <i>de novo</i> DSA was more frequent in the r-ATG group (11.4% vs. 2.4%, <i>p</i> = 0.017). e-GFR changes did not differ noticeably between groups. Although most infections showed no noticeable differences between groups, more patients in the r-ATG group had cytomegalovirus (CMV) antigenemia and serum polyomavirus (BK virus) (73.0% vs. 51.9%, <i>p</i> = 0.032 in CMV; 37.8% vs. 15.6%, <i>p</i> = 0.002 in BK), which did not aggravate graft failure. Living donor kidney transplantation patients who received low-dose r-ATG and patients who received basiliximab showed comparable outcomes in terms of graft survival, function, and overall infections. Although CMV antigenemia, BK viremia were more frequent in the r-ATG group, those factors didn’t change the graft outcomes.
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