De. Speiser et al., RELATION BETWEEN THE RESOLUTION OF HLA-TYPING AND THE CHANCE OF FINDING AN UNRELATED BONE-MARROW DONOR, Bone marrow transplantation, 13(6), 1994, pp. 805-809
The chance of finding an unrelated bone marrow donor depends on the si
ze of the donor registry, the frequency of the patient's HLA phenotype
and the degree of histoincompatibility considered acceptable. We have
studied 60 unrelated bone marrow donor searches and the probability o
f finding a donor when increasing HLA-compatibility requirements were
applied. For 21 (35%) of the patients no donor could be identified who
was (serologically) matched for all six ABDR antigens. For the remain
ing 39 (65%), a median of two (range 1-20) blood samples from serologi
cally-matehed potential donors was obtained for further analysis. Eigh
teen (30%) patients appeared to be mismatched with all the pre-selecte
d donors because of DR (sub-)type mismatches detected by oligotyping.
A further 7 (12%) patients did not have an MLC and/or cytotoxic T lymp
hocyte precursor (CTLp) negative donor. Thus, a 'perfectly matched' do
nor was found for 11 (18%) patients. To find a suitable donor for more
patients we propose that many or all the potential donors identified
in the various registries for a particular patient are simultaneously
evaluated as many of the serologically ABDR-matched donors will appear
to be incompatible after high resolution HLA-typing. This strategy wi
ll not only allow selection of the best matched donor more rapidly but
the consequent use of high resolution typing might also lead to the d
efinition of a certain number of acceptable mismatches.