Beneficial effect of HLA-A and B matched pretransplant blood transfusions on primary cadaveric kidney graft survival.

The effects of HLA-A and B matched pretransplant blood transfusions on the survival of a primary cadaveric kidney graft were studied prospectively in a group of 15 patients who had never received a transfusion and had never been pregnant. Kidney graft survival at one year was 87%, whereas a group of 14 nontransfused patients who underwent transplantation in the same center (before this study was initiated) had a graft survival of only 7%. Twenty-six patients who received a transplant in the same center just before and after each protocol patient served as controls. There were no prior pregnancies in this group; all patients had received blood transfusions from random blood bank donors. Kidney graft survival at one year was 76% for this control group, which is not statistically different from that found for the protocol group. Graft survival for the 13 contralateral kidneys from the protocol group donors was only 50% at one year. These kidneys, however, were transplanted in various other centers. From our study, prolongation of kidney graft survival could be demonstrated for patients receiving pretransplant HLA-A-and-B-matched blood transfusions. Sera screening indicated that lymphocytotoxicity might be reduced by pretransplant HLA-A-and-B-matched blood transfusions. The presence of pretransplant antibodies with specificities for HLA-A and/or B could be significantly correlated with poor graft survival.