Archives of The Medicine and Case Reports
Vol. 7 No. 3 (2026): Archives of The Medicine and Case Reports

Maintenance Immunosuppressive Prescribing Patterns in Kidney Transplant Recipients at an Indonesian Tertiary Referral Hospital: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study

Dimo Pratama (Pharmacy Study Program, STIKes Mitra Keluarga, Bekasi, Indonesia)
Aqmarina Tamimi (Department of Pharmacy, Majenang Regional General Hospital, Cilacap, Indonesia)
Yulia Wardhani (Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia)



Article Info

Publish Date
13 Aug 2026

Abstract

Kidney transplantation is the optimal kidney replacement therapy for end-stage kidney disease, but graft survival depends on lifelong maintenance immunosuppression. Indonesian data on how these medicines are actually prescribed remain scarce. Retrospective cross-sectional drug-utilisation study of 53 maintenance immunosuppressant prescriptions dispensed to kidney transplant recipients at a tertiary referral hospital in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, between 2017 and 2024. Proportions were estimated with Wilson 95% confidence intervals (CI); within-class preference with exact binomial tests; associations with Fisher exact tests; prescribing concentration with diversity indices and bootstrap CIs; and frequencies were benchmarked against published French, Korean and Indonesian reference proportions using Holm-adjusted exact binomial tests, reported as absolute differences and prevalence ratios. Reporting followed STROBE. Recipients were mostly aged 18–49 years (73.6%) and male (64.2%). Tacrolimus was the only calcineurin inhibitor prescribed (100.0%; 95% CI 93.2–100.0), and mycophenolic acid the only antiproliferative agent. Methylprednisolone was the preferred corticosteroid (69.8%; 56.5–80.5; p = 0.002) and enteric-coated mycophenolate sodium the preferred formulation (77.4%; 64.5–86.5; p < 0.001). The modal regimen was tacrolimus plus methylprednisolone plus mycophenolate sodium (56.6%; 43.3–69.0). Tacrolimus and mycophenolic acid use exceeded a French national cohort (+8.7 and +9.5 percentage points; Holm-adjusted p = 0.040 and 0.034), whereas corticosteroid maintenance did not differ significantly (96.2% versus 88.1%; p = 0.086). Prescribing was highly concentrated (Herfindahl–Hirschman Index 3,799). In conclusion, maintenance prescribing was exceptionlessly tacrolimus- and mycophenolate-based, exceeding even high-volume European practice, and reproduced an independent Indonesian series almost exactly. Corticosteroid maintenance was near-universal, identifying corticosteroid minimisation and therapeutic drug monitoring capacity as priority targets.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

AMCR

Publisher

Subject

Health Professions Medicine & Pharmacology Nursing Public Health

Description

Archives of The Medicine and Case Reports (AMCR) is a broad scope journal aims to publish the most exciting Case studies/reports in Clinical and Medical Sciences. AMCR aims to provide an excellent platform for Clinical Practitioners, medical/ health practitioners, students, professionals, ...