Quality Control Program for Hla Antigen/allele Typing and Antibody Screening Tests

European Federation for Immunogenetics (EFI) accredited tissue typing laboratories in Istanbul Medical Faculty, Department of Medical Biology has been accepted as the reference laboratory for the ‘External Quality Control Tests’ program among HLA laboratories in Turkey by the permission of Turkish Ministry of Health since 2004. The test systems performed for the determination of essential parameters affecting the survival of the organ transplanted and the patient have been evaluated in this program for three rounds. Round I (RI) was performed for HLA-A,B. Round II (RII) was performed for HLA-DR and panel reactive antibody (PRA) class I. We evaluated results for three rounds that include six sections. Number of total and discrepant results were 308, 210, 78, 78, 60, 72 and 25, 12, 1, 9, 4, 4 for each of sections which include HLA-A, B, HLA-DR, PRA Class I, PRA Class I, PRA Class II, cross-match (XM) respectively. Also discrepancy percentages were 8.2, 5.8, 1.3, 11.6, 6.7, 5.6, respectively. Most frequent undetected or erroneous antigens and alleles according to the consensus results were HLA-A33, B35, B51, B58 and HLA-DRB1*11 and 13, respectively. Standardization of the laboratories performing HLA typing, XM and PRA tests are at crucial importance for a successful transplantation as the results from these labs are highly informative for the clinician.