Symptoms:

• The organ's function may start to decrease
• General discomfort, uneasiness, or ill feeling
• Pain or swelling in the area of the organ (rare)
• Fever (rare)
• Flu-like symptoms, including chills, body aches, nausea, cough, and shortness of breath

The symptoms depend on the transplanted organ or tissue. For example, patients who reject a kidney may have less urine, and patients who reject a heart may have symptoms of heart failure.

Signs and tests:

The doctor will examine the area over and around the transplanted organ, which may feel tender to you (especially with a kidney transplant).

There are often signs that the organ isn't working properly, such as:

• High blood sugar (pancreas transplant)
• Less urine released (kidney transplant)
• Shortness of breath and less ability to exercise (heart transplant)
• Yellow skin color and easy bleeding (liver transplant)

A biopsy of the transplanted organ can confirm that it is being rejected. A routine biopsy is often performed to detect rejection early, before symptoms develop.

When organ rejection is suspected, one or more of the following tests may be done before the organ biopsy:

• Abdominal CT scan
• Chest x-ray
• Heart echocardiography
• Kidney arteriography
• Kidney ultrasound
• Lab tests of kidney or liver function