Transplantation related donors: experience of 1355 Chinese patients.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Currently in China, many young patients are "only children" due to the one-child policy that has been in place for nearly 30 years; therefore, other related donors become more important due to having no siblings. We evaluated the experience of 1355 Chinese patients searching for three types of transplantation-related donors (siblings, parents or children, extended related donors), which were defined as Type I, II and III donors, respectively) retrospectively in a single center.

METHODS

In this study, 2220 HLA haplotypes were defined by segregation in 555 families and the three different related donor types of 1355 patients were analyzed separately.

RESULTS

A30-B13-DR7, A2-B46-DR9, A33-B58-DR17, A2-B13-DR12, A11-B75-DR12, A1-B37-DR10, A33-B44-DR13, A2-B46-DR8, A33-B58-DR13 were the most common haplotypes in China. In Type II donors, the probability of HLA-matched was 2.13%, and that of one HLA-A, -B or -DR locus mismatched was 4.84%, respectively. Interestingly, of eight HLA-matched Type II donors, each parent had the same HLA haplotype including A30-B13-DR7, A33-B58-DR17, A11-B75-DR12, A33-B58-DR13, A29-B7-DR7. Therein, four were A30-B13-DR7.

CONCLUSIONS

If the patient who has the most common haplotype in China (A30-B13-DR7) is an only child or not an HLA-matched Type I donor, searching for Type II donors is a meaningful strategy. If the patient has one very common haplotype (A30-B13-DR7) and one relatively uncommon haplotype, searching for Type III donors is still a reasonable strategy.