Fig. 1: Patient screening and assignment, and comparison of hemoglobin level, relapse-free survival or serum creatinine level in patients with sirolimus or CsA treatment.

A Trial profile. A total of 68 patients were screened for the eligibility. Among those, 11 patients were excluded for not meeting the inclusion criteria, and the remaining 57 patients were ultimately enrolled. Of those, 30 patients received CsA therapy, and the others received sirolimus therapy. Except one patient in sirolimus group lost at the initial follow-up, the remaining patients had completed the designed treatment. B Hemoglobin change after sirolimus or CsA treatment. Dot plot shows the change of hemoglobin level over time in patients treated with sirolimus (n = 26) or CsA (n = 30). ns, P > 0.05, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, using two-tailed unpaired student’s t-test. The trendline denotes the median value of hemoglobin and the shade area around the trendline denotes the 95% confident interval of the corresponding median value in each group. C Relapse-free survival of patients treated with sirolimus (n = 26) or CsA (n = 30). P was based on log-rank test. D Serum creatinine level in patients post sirolimus and CsA treatment. Boxplot shows serum creatinine level in patients post treatment with sirolimus (n = 26) or CsA (n = 30). P was based on two-tailed unpaired student’s t-test. E Serum creatinine level in patients pre/post sirolimus or CsA treatment, respectively. Boxplot shows serum creatinine level in patients pre/post-treatment with sirolimus (n = 26) or CsA (n = 30). P was based on two-tailed paired student’s t-test.