Increased antibody responsiveness to blood transfusions in pediatric patients

Heightened immune responsiveness has been proposed as one of the reasons underlying suboptimal renal transplant results in very young children or African American recipients. Because multiple factors influence graft outcome, it has been difficult to provide experimental evidence to confirm or refute this suggestion. In the present study we measured IgG antibodies with confirmed HLA specificity produced in response to blood transfusions. The patients evaluated were renal transplant candidates who had not had previous pregnancies or transplants. The overall incidence of HLA sensitization was 12%. Age was the most influential factor in sensitization: patients < 20 years old were 4-5 times as likely to produce anti-HLA antibodies than patients > 20 (P = 0.0018). Female patients were also high responders. However, this was explained by the higher proportion of children among nulliparous female patients rather than by differences in gender. In contrast, the antibody response of black and white recipients was similar. The antibody levels in most patients were low and decreased significantly with time. We conclude that the immunoregulatory influences in patients < 20 years old favor the production of anti-HLA antibodies in response to blood transfusions, a fact that may explain some clinical observations in pediatric transplant recipients.