Half Match?

[RichardMEL]

Hi all,

My lovely sister has been doing the tests to be considered for a donation (my brother is diff. blood group and 0 match on the HLA tests)... Anyway the tests came back and the doc says she's a half match (same blood group though) for me. I've been looking around and it seems like a half match is pretty good (compared with a full match) but can't really find much more than that except one study that seemed to imply that live relative donations with full match lasted on average 24 years, and half match could last 18 years (assuming there is no rejection of course).

I'm interested in the wisdom of these forums on this matter... if anyone here has had a half match transplant? And/or what they might have been told about any increased risks from this procedure? (I understand that less and less importance is being put on the HLA matches, but still).

I am trying to not get my hopes up on this one since there are heaps more tests to go and my sister has some issues of her own which may affect things... so I want to get some general idea of what I might be facing...

thanks,
richard

[AlasdairUK]

Hi Richard,

A half match is pretty good and these days with the advancement in immunosuppressent drugs they do not worry so much about the matching. It is more to do with how many anti-bodies you will create from the miss match of the tissue typing ie. for your next transplant if required as the more anti-bodies you have the harder it becomes to miss match the tissue type against your anti-bodies.

With stats regarding how long a transplant will last. You are always looking at outdated information as 10 years ago they would only transplant with a 3 in 6 match, nowdays they are happy to a 0 in six match.

If you received a kidney from a parent it would only be a 3 in 6 match. A complete match is very rare, you have a 25% chance from a sibling for both a complete match and a complete mismatch and a 50% chance of a 3 in 6 match.

There are also drugs that are less toxic to the kidney than in the past. A live donation is always better than a cadaveric even if the match is not as good.

[okarol]

Jenna's donor (unrelated) was the same blood type (O) and a 1 out of 6 antigen match. There was a mild B cell antibody crossmatch that they dealt with by doing plasmapheresis the day before the surgery. They felt it was a very good kidney for Jenna.