Paul I. Terasaki Foundation Laboratory

PROSPECTIVE STUDIES OF THE EFFECT OF ANTIBODIES ON HEART, LUNG AND LIVER TRANSPLANTS

In the 13th workshop a few labs submitted data on antibody tests of heart and lung transplants, and the following data was obtained 4 years later. As you see from the figures, AFTER antibody tests, in the subsequent 4 years, those with antibodies had a lower graft survival than those who did not have antibodies. This means that HLA antibodies do cause graft rejection in these transplants.

To solidify these results, a larger scale collaborative study is needed to convince everyone that HLA antibodies are important. We hope you will participate.

If you have tested any patients for antibodies post transplantation, and the patients are currently alive, then they qualify for this prospective study. We want to know if we wait for one year, whether those with antibodies would fail at a higher rate than those without antibodies. Could you please enter any patients you had tested in the following form. This will then constitute registration of the patient into the prospective study. We plan to ask you one year later, if the patient is still alive or not.

These results will be summarized in the Brazilian Workshop in Buzios, Sept 2008, which we hope you will attend. In addition, could you please test more patients who have functioning grafts. We found it best to accumulate sera at the follow-up clinics. We will supply restocking reagents for any results reported to the workshop. In other words, we would like to support your work by supplying reagents to do the tests. Attached is justification for human subjects committee. Also a publication on kidney transplants.