As many as a quarter of transplanted kidneys are not matched closely enough to transplant patients because of errors in the matching process. This mismatching probably accounts for many otherwise unexplained kidney failures in transplant patients.
These are the conclusions of German immunologist Gerhard Opelz of Heidelberg University, who coordinated a study of more than 4000 transplants across Europe and the US. Opelz and his team uncovered the discrepancies with a recently developed DNA-based tissue-typing technique, which appears certain to improve matching and extend the life of transplanted kidneys.
Matching relies on identifying the antigens on the surfaces of the cells. Before a transplant operation, the donor's and recipient's antigens are identified by testing tissue against a bank of some 300 different sera from people with known antigens. The procedure takes about 5 hours.
Two of the three most important classes of tissue antigen, known as HLA-A and HLA-B, are ...
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