Titers for ABO incompatible organ transplants

[bmarotto]

Our transplant team is requesting anti-A and/or anti-B titers for possible ABO incompatible living donor transplants (both kidney and liver). They are also requesting A1 typing if the proposed donor is Group A. It is not clear if they are rejecting an A1 donor or waiting to see what the anti-A titer is. My questions are:

1. What method should be used for the titer? My understanding is they want an AHG titer.

2. For a group A donor, should the cells used to titer the recipient's anti-A be A1 positive, A1 negative, or should we decide based on the A1 status of the donor?

Any help would be appreciated.

[L106]

I'm not involved with transplants, so I'm not the best help for you. However, you may want to consider using the "Universal Titration" procedure recommented by CAP to provide standard reproducibility of your titers, and the procedure does have an AHG phase of testing.

Concerning your second question: Sure there are others that are involved with transplantations that have some expertise and experience that they can share with you. (Come on out there!!)