IS THE STRENGTH OF SINGLE HLA ANTIGEN MISMATCH VARIABLE IN KIDNEY TRANSPLANT SURVIVAL?

The survival rate among 458 cadaver kidney grafts with "full-house" four HLA-A,B antigens detected in the donor, three being identical to those of the recipient and only one mismatched, was studied specifically in relation to antigen incompatibility. At the A locus, the A3 incompatibility was associated with a lower transplant survival (44% at 2 years) than all of the others, and particularly more than the A11 (80% at 2 years) (P less than 0.003 but without significance after correction multiplying by the number of tested alleles). At the B locus, there was no significant difference in survival rate among the alleles. These results are only preliminary and need confirmation based on longer series permitting possible cross-reactions which exit between donor and recipient antigens to be taken into consideration.