CARDIAC TRANSPLANT CANDIDATES WITH LVAD MAY HAVE CIRCULATING LEVEL OF HLA-SPECIFIC NATURAL AND/OR ALLOANTIBODIES

摘要

Calculated PRA which determines the percentage of PRA is based on unacceptable antigens of patients. Therefore, listing a well defined unacceptable antigen is crucial for determining the accurate percentage of PRA. In addition it eliminates allocation of organs to incompatible recipients, the process which facilitate organ allocation. We have been utilizing single antigen beads by flow and microarray tests with Luminex technology for antibody identification. The analysis lists both HLA and natural HLA-specific antibodies. The latter are usually low titer antibodies and may not be clinically significant. Therefore, it is important to be able to distinguish these antibodies in order to decrease the rate of unnecessary exclusion of patients who would otherwise receive transplants. The aim of our study was to determine if an accurate HLA specificity analysis would be possible by determining either a cut-off value for MFI reactivity, crossmatching with surrogate donors or by dissociation of antigen with elution buffer.