Human leukocyte antigen proficiency testing for Central and Eastern Europe: a summary of over 10 years of activity

The first trial of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) Proficiency Testing for Central and Eastern Europe (formerly Proficiency Testing of HLA class I Typing for Central and Eastern Europe) was organized in 1999 with 5 Polish institutions that were involved in HLA typing. Since then, 46 HLA laboratories in 13 countries have participated in our external proficiency testing schemes. The workshop conducted by our institution meets the expectations of the European Federation for Immunogenetics to provide data on the reliability of histocompatibility testing. Our standardization workshop currently covers serological typing of HLA class I A and B loci and DNA typing at the low- and high-resolution level of HLA class I (A, B, C) and class II (DRB1, DQB1) loci. It has >30 HLA laboratories participating each year. Thirty-two laboratories in 9 countries participated in the last session, the 15th workshop in 2009. Twenty-three laboratories submitted results of HLA class I typing by serology; 28 participated in HLA class I DNA typing and 28 participated in HLA class II DNA typing, including 5 and 7 laboratories that sent results of high-resolution typing for class I and class II specificities, respectively. Continuous improvement is seen with respect to both serology and DNA typing, although some doubtful results are still reported.