Automated measurement of cell destruction: the Patimed system in comparison with conventional HLA typing and the cell mediated lympholysis test (CML).

The key role of HLA polymorphism in the pathogenesis of many diseases and in determining compatibility in transplantation makes it desirable to employ automated systems for identifying HLA polymorphism. For more than one year we have used the photometer system Patimed commercially available from the Leica company. We compared the results of the conventional cell-mediated lympholysis test and conventional serological HLA typing with the results obtained by the Patimed system. Despite some good preliminary results it would be premature, in our opinion, to recommend the Patimed system for routine assessment of killer cell activity whereas we can definitely recommend the Patimed system to define HLA class I and class II molecules serologically for research or routine purposes.