Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.1.3.16 (calcineurin)
 17,112 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A 59-year-old man with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis cirrhosis underwent an orthotopic liver transplant and experienced a complicated postoperative course, including a prolonged delirium. After discharge to rehabilitation, he had 2 subsequent admissions for delirium. On the first readmission, the transplant team started the patient on risperidone and resumed treatment with sertraline. On his second readmission, neurology and psychiatry were consulted. On evaluation, the patient demonstrated signs of catatonia. On the basis of recommendations from psychiatry, the risperidone and sertraline were stopped, and the patient was started on mirtazapine. He failed to demonstrate improvement within the next 48 hours. Extensive work-up demonstrated a multifactorial etiology for his delirium, including calcineurin-related neuropsychiatric toxicity from tacrolimus leading to possible posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome. However, after the initiation of memantine on hospital day 3-before the cessation of tacrolimus-the patient demonstrated marked improvement in mental status and motor symptoms. His magnetic resonance imaging, in addition to findings that raised concerns about posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, had demonstrated bilateral basal ganglia abnormalities on T1 imaging of uncertain origin. It is postulated that these findings served as predisposing factors for the patient's catatonic symptoms. Although it has been described in case reports following liver transplant, catatonia remains an underrecognized neuropsychiatric complication following liver transplant. This case demonstrates the effectiveness of memantine, an N-methyl-D-aspartic acid antagonist that decreases glutamine excitotoxicity, as a potential treatment for catatonia in postliver transplant patients.
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PMID:Prolonged Delirium With Catatonia Following Orthotopic Liver Transplant Responsive to Memantine. 2713 84

Neurologic complications are common after solid-organ transplantation, occurring in one-third of patients. Immunosuppression-related neurotoxicity (involving calcineurin inhibitors and corticosteroids), opportunistic central nervous system infections, seizures, and delirium are some of the causes of neurologic symptoms following solid-organ transplantation. An uncommon often missed complication posttransplantation involves buildup of ammonia levels that can lead to rapid clinical deterioration even when treated. Ammonia levels are not routinely checked due to the myriad of other explanations for encephalopathy in a transplant recipient. A treatment of choice for severe hyperammonemia involves renal replacement therapy (RRT), but there are no guidelines on the mode or parameters of RRT for reducing ammonia levels. Hyperammonemia in a transplant recipient poses specific challenges beyond the actual condition because the treatment (RRT) involves significant hemodynamic fluctuations that may affect the graft. In this review, we describe a patient with posttransplantation hyperammonemia and discuss the pathways of ammonia metabolism, potential factors underlying the development of hyperammonemia posttransplantation, and choice of appropriate therapeutic options in these patients.
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PMID:Pathophysiology and Management of Hyperammonemia in Organ Transplant Patients. 3104 91