Selection of the most compatible graft recipient by computer program, used in regional tissue typing laboratory of...

The purpose of this study was to present the new computer program that we developed in the regional tissue typing laboratory (R.T.T.L.) and use for the selection of the most suitable recipient for cadaveric allografts in a more efficient way. This new program was written and compiled in TURBO PASCAL 6.0, sorts all possible recipients to the HLA type of a donor, checks for the existence of splits and utilises them, and when requested, gives out results to more specific inquiries, i.e. all compatible recipients from 2DR2B2A to 1DR0B0A matching. It can also forecast success percentages according to different factors, i.e. combination of donor's and recipient's ages, HLA matching etc. The material used for this study were the patients who are registered in the formal cadaveric transplantation list of R.T.T.L. We have used this program since 2 January 1992 together with the old one. Since then we found that the new program is faster in sorting all the possible recipients of cadaveric renal allografts according to the criteria already mentioned. The total selection time, with all the criteria activated, averages a few seconds, whereas with the old program it took approximately 2 min just for the sorting of HLA matching, without any other criteria activated. In the printout of the final result of each inquiry are all the possible recipients in the sorted order together with relevant data (telephone number, address etc.). As a result, the laboratory personnel has been free from the tedious task of this sorting which was initially done by hand and the possibility of error has been eliminated. The program was developed exclusively by doctors and all the updates needed are done by the users. More important, however, is the fact that in many cases the time of cold ischaemia was reduced by more than 30 min with all the obvious advantages for the longevity of the graft's life.