Human histocompatibility antigens and organ transplantation

The success of organ transplantation depends not only upon the degree of skill employed in the execution of the technical procedure, but equally upon the proper antigenic matching of the donor and the recipient. Although there does not exist at the present time a perfect test for performing tissue typing-as in the case of blood transfusions-the most promising tests are those of leukocyte typing. This is possible because the histocompatibility antigens that determine the success or failure of tissue allografts are also found on the leukocytes. The problem concerns itself with developing an exact, specific, monosera test-simple and uncumbersome-that can be used to type the leukocytes and thus select a donor who corresponds antigenically to the recipient.