INTRODUCTION Measurement of alloantibody titer to a red cell antigen (ABO titers) is an integral part of management of ABO incompatible kidney transplants (ABOiKT). MATERIAL AND METHODS There are different methods of titer estimation. Alloantibody detection by tube titration and Gel agglutination columns are accepted methodologies. It is essential to find the difference in titers between the ...

Memory T cells specific for donor Ags present a unique challenge in transplantation. In addition to expressing robust immune responses to a transplanted organ, memory T cells may be resistant to the effects of immunosuppressive therapies used to prolong graft survival. In this study, we explore the possibility of controlling deleterious donor-reactive memory CD4 T cells through lymphoid sequest...

Although hemophilia has a potentially high economic impact, published estimates of health care costs for Americans with hemophilia are sparse and non-specific as to the non-bleeding complications of the disease. The objective of this study is to estimate average annual health care expenditures for people with hemophilia covered by employer-sponsored insurance, stratified according to the influe...

CONTEXT Patients with sickle cell anemia (SCA) are frequently transfused with red blood cells (RBC). Recently we reported that the calculated risk of RBC alloimmunization per transfussed unit in Brazilian patients with SCA is 1.15%. We describe a delayed hemolytic transfusion reaction (DHTR) presenting as a painful crisis in a patient with SCA. CASE REPORT A 35-year-old Brazilian female with ...

The presence of donor-specific alloantibodies (DSAs) against the MICA antigen results in high risk for antibody-mediated rejection (AMR) of a transplanted kidney, especially in patients receiving a re-transplant. We describe the incidence of acute C4d+ AMR in a patient who had received a first kidney transplant with a zero HLA antigen mismatch. Retrospective analysis of post-transplant T and B ...

Multiply-transfused individuals are at higher risk for BM rejection. We show that whereas allosensitization resulted in the priming of both cellular and humoral immunity, preformed antibody was the major barrier to engraftment. The generation of cross-reactive alloantibody led to rejection of BM of a different MHC-disparate strain. Imaging studies indicated that antibody-mediated rejection was ...

A radioimmunoassay for alloantibodies (inhibitors) and heteroantibodies to human factor IX has been developed using radioiodinated human factor IX and formalin-fixed, heat-killed Staphylococcus aureus cells (Staph A). Staph A was used as a solid-phase adsorbent for immune complexes. The assay is specific, shows excellent correlation with factor IX coagulant neutralization assays in detecting al...

The monitoring of the levels of alloantibodies following transplantation might facilitate early diagnosis of chronic rejection (CR), the leading cause of renal allograft failure. Here, we used serial alloantibody surveillance to monitor patients with preoperative positive flow cytometric crossmatch (FCXM). Sixty-nine of 308 renal transplant patients in our center had preoperative positive FCXM....