Pretransplantation monitoring of HLA antibodies by complement dependent cytotoxicity and Luminex-based assays.

Background: The introduction of more sensitive techniques, such as Luminex® for HLA antibody screening of patients awaiting organ transplantation has resulted in a better understanding of transplantation immunology and improvements in clinical practice.

Objective: The interpretation of the results obtained only by Luminex® can lead to inaccurate evaluation of a patient's antibody status and unjustified rejection of a potential organ donor. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the benefits of performing HLA antibody screening in the sera of patients on the waiting list for organ transplantation by two different assays, complement dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) and Luminex®.

[Evaluation and selection of candidates for renal transplantation at the Clinical Hospital Center in Rijeka].

On December 31, 2001, 2486 patients with terminal renal failure received dialysis treatment in Croatia. Only one third of the patients are registered on the national waiting list for cadaveric kidney transplant. In most of the others, transplantation is impossible because of comorbidity.

[pp65 antigenemia in evaluation of cytomegalovirus infection after kidney transplantation].

Introduction: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is the most common infectious complication after organ transplantation. Serology is useful only for detecting previous CMV infection. Dissatisfied with serologic follow-up after kidney transplantation, three years ago we introduced detection of CMV antigenemia by an immunocytochemical method using a monoclonal antibody specific for the pp65 CMV matrix protein.