CLINICAL APPLICATION OF FLOW CYTOMETRY IN LIVE RELATED DONOR RENAL TRANSPLANTATION

To monitor the activity of the humoral component in graft dysfunction following renal transplantation using live related donors, flowcytometric cross-match procedure was adopted. Antidonor antibodies were detected in the sera of both pre- and post-transplant patients using conventional serological cytotoxicity cross-match and flowcytometric cross-match assays. In the 52 pretransplant samples no significant differences were observed in flowcytometric and cytotoxicity tests except in 2 secondary transplant cases which were negative by cytotoxicity test. However, in post-transplant samples, floweytometry was found to be a more objective and useful test than cytotoxicity testing in distinguishing 6 out of 7 mild acute-graft-rejection episodes. Both tests were found to be negative in alt 5 cases of cyclosporin-A nephrotoxicity, 7 cases of acute tubular necrosis and 10 out of 11 cases of chronic rejection.