[National quality control of serologic HLA typing]

Since 1995 the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, in collaboration with the Italian Red Cross, has been organising annually the quality control of serological HLA class I and II typing on histocompatibility laboratories which perform typing for organ and bone marrow transplantation. Improvement has been obtained every year; in fact, results of the 1997 control show that the 77% of the laboratories typed the major specificities correctly. Despite the remarkable improvement achieved during the first three years of quality controls, a new organisation has been designed for further years to ensure the participation of all the Italian laboratories (more than 100) and to promote a quality control scheme that will be acceptable at international level.