COMPARISON OF PANEL-REACTIVE ANTIBODY-LEVELS IN CAUCASIAN AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN RENAL-TRANSPLANT CANDIDATES

PRA levels from 58 Caucasian and 70 African American ESRD patients wer e compared against a panel of cryopreserved lymphocytes from 60 donors (40 Caucasian, 15 African American, 5 others) to determine whether th ere was significant racial influence on PRA outcome, African Americans were found to have significantly higher mean PRA levels than Caucasia ns (27% vs, 18%, P=0.02). Restricting this analysis to only 1 degrees transplant candidates showed predictably lower mean PRAs: 6% in Caucas ians and 15% in African Americans, but the difference between the two groups remained significant (P=0.015), The percentage of patients with PRA greater than or equal to 10% was also greater among African Ameri cans than Caucasians (43% vs. 24%, P=0.026), For patients not previous ly transplanted, the difference between these frequencies remained sig nificant: 11% in Caucasians, 30% in African Americans (P=0.025), Untra nsplanted African American patients with positive PRAs (greater than o r equal to 10%) had significantly higher PRA against African American cell donors (mean = 55%) than against Caucasian cell donors (mean = 44 %) (mean difference = 10.6%, P=0.0056), African Americans were more fr equently transfused than Caucasians, The percentage of patients not pr eviously transplanted receiving 0, 1-5, and >5 transfusions were 69%, 22%, and 9% for Caucasians and 43%, 44%, and 13% for African Americans (P=0.03). This higher transfusion rate is the most likely contributor to the elevated PRA levels observed in African Americans.