Reducing number of laboratories performing complement dependent cytotoxicity crossmatching: Reasons and conclusions

Complement dependent cytotoxicity crossmatch (CDC-XM) has been the original standard crossmatch test, whereas, flow cytometry crossmatch (FCXM) is an enhanced and highly sensitive crossmatch assay performed to detect donor specific anti-HLA antibodies (DSA). We analyzed American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ASHI) proficiency testing data (2011–2020) and examined the number of laboratories performing CDC-XM vs. FCXM, the overall efficiency of laboratories in reporting ≥80% consensus CDC-XM vs. FCXM result, and reasons for non-consensus results in the two assays. Of 600 crossmatches in each crossmatch category, the percentage of laboratories reporting T cell CDC-XMs reduced from 40% in 2011 to 13% in 2020, T cell anti-human globulin (AHG) CDC-XM reduced from 56% in 2011 to 21% in 2020, and B cell CDC-XM reduced from 51% in 2011 to 20% in 2020. The percentage of laboratories performing T cell and B cell FCXM remained at approximately 80% throughout. CDC-XM performed on par with FCXM in providing a consensus negative result using negative DSA serum, but under-performed in comparison to FCXM in providing a consensus positive result using positive DSA serum. In addition, only minority of CDC-XMs was reported positive in presence of complement fixing DSA. This study shows that non-consensus CDC-XM was always in presence of HLA IgG DSA and that laboratories may be struggling to interpret the low sensitive CDC-XM results, where highly sensitive solid phase multi-antigen or single antigen assay shows the presence of HLA IgG DSA in serum.