Pre-transplant low level HLA antibody shows a composite poor outcome in long-term outcome of renal transplant recipients

Abstract To determine the significance of low-level DSA (donor specific antibody) in patients transplanted with negative cytotoxicity AHG (antihuman immunoglobulin) crossmatch, data from 279 patients who received a kidney transplant between July 1999 and March 2006 were collected. All kidney recipients received ABO-compatible donors. A poor outcome was defined as any one of the following: death, Cr > 2.0 mmol/L, occurrence of a rejection episode. Luminex Screening and Single Antigen assays from Tepnel Life Codes were used to detect human leukocyte antigen antibodies on pre-transplant sera retrospectively. Twenty-four out of 279 recipients demonstrated the presence of solid-phase DSA (MFI > 1000) present pre-transplant. In DSA+ group, the accumulated good versus poor outcome rate was 0.30 versus 0.70, respectively. These rates were 0.49 and 0.51, respectively, in the DSA− group. The difference in composite poor outcome between DSA+ versus DSA− group was significant (p = 0.030). The DSA− group had no difference in patient survival as compared to the DSA+ group (p = 0.061). There is no statistically significant difference for either mortality or outcome results between high MFI (>2000) and low MFI ( 2000) groups. Our data suggest that solid-phase antibodies which are not strong enough to elicit a positive T-AHG crossmatch may influence long-term graft outcome.