difficulty of getting a tissue match

[RightSide]

I'm on the waiting list for a cadaver transplant.  I'm still waiting, even though I was told that with my blood type being AB, my wait time should be shorter than average.

So I'm beginning to wonder. For a transplant, you have to have a tissue type match as well as a blood type match, yes? 

Does that mean I have to find a donor whose ancestry comes from the same part of the world as mine, for genetic compatibility?

If so, then for me, that may be a real problem.  My ancestors lived in Eurasia, near the border between Russia and what is now Belarus. But thanks to two fellows named Hitler and Stalin, anyone who lived in those villages who didn't emigrate from there were murdered in World War II, and even their villages were burned.  Outside of my own relatives (none of whom is interested in applying to be a donor), I don't think anyone from those villages survived World War II.

[boswife]

wow RightSide, im firstly amazed (and horrified deeply) at your family ancestry, and then at your predicament.. I'll be curious to find out if someone knows the answer to your question. 

ps,,,im glad your here.

[cariad]

I don't know a lot about the tissue match aspect, but I had a 2-antigen match with my husband and was never told the level of tissue match. We are obviously not related at least not in any recent sense. I can tell you what we were told day one in physical anthro - the foundation of this science being the study of evolution - that it is pointless to ask 'who are my ancestors' because if we go back just 2000 years, you have literally thousands of potential ancestors.

So what I am trying to say is, Hitler and Stalin may have tried to obliterate your ancestors, but they failed miserably. They are out there, I promise. Have you heard of that book that traces inter-relations between celebrities? I saw it on The Colbert Report and apparently Stephen Colbert is related to Queen Noor (American queen of Jordan) among others. They did a recent study that showed that 25% of the people of Ireland are related to one of their princes. Your ancestors are actually from Africa, as are mine, as are all of ours.

Good luck - I hope you find your match soon, RightSide! AB blood should help a great deal.

[RichardMEL]

You raise an interesting point. I was talking to a nurse at my unit a week or so ago and she was tellling me about a patient of hers in the past that had been told she would find it hard to get a good match because she was asian, and the pool of likely donors would be lower, an there IS a different set of antigens based on race apparently. Although Australia has an increasing proportion of folks of Asian background living here that it was unlikely. So of course 9 months on the list she got the call - to many people's amazement.

Maybe this is something you should discuss with your neph or transplant co-ordinator  in terms of how difficult they think it might be to get a likely match. My next suggestion might sound a little racist, but I do NOT mean it that way, but given the way the system seems to work in the US, would it make some sense to list at a unit in an area with a higher proportion of eurasian folks living there? What I'm thinking is that the donor population might contain more like-blooded folks. I am not sure how practical that might be though.

I think like the woman my nurse was telling me about it could well be that that match will come when you least expect it and may not even need to be from someone with a similar ethic background.

[Jie]

One does not need to have any antigen match for a transplant. A 6 out of 6 match is the best. However, a 0 out of 6 match from a living donor is still better than a 6 out of 6 match from a decreased donor.  In the U.S., if you have a 6 out of 6 match from a decreased donor, you will usually get the kidney regardless your waiting time. If you have one DR antigen match, you get a point, worth of one year of waiting time. Two DR matches is worth of 2 years of waiting time. Antigens A and B matches do not get any points. If a decreased donor does not have any 6 out of 6 match, whoever has the longest waiting time (including DR bonus) will usually get the kidney.

For AB patients, you have a chance to get 6 out of 6 match from all blood types plus A and AB donors from the waiting time. So, unless your PRA is too high, your waiting time should be relatively short.