Flow cytometric crossmatch for kidney transplantation.

Serum samples from 49 patients with panel reactive antibodies of greater than 15% and 17 patients who have related donor pairs were collected at the Department of Transfusion Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital. Crossmatching was performed by three methods, flow cytometry crossmatch (FCXM), the standard National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the antihuman globulin (AHG) microlymphocytotoxicity. 28.9% Spell out of both T- and B-cell crossmatch was positive by FCXM and negative by NIH and AHG. When the T-cell and B-cell crossmatches were negative by FCXM, they were negative by both NIH- and AHG method. There was significant difference of the crossmatch result between FCXM and NIH and between FCXM and AHG (p < 0.0001). In addition, FCXM was about 4-16 and 8-32 times more sensitive than AHG- and NIH method, respectively. In conclusion, the result of FCXM is clear and this method is more sensitive than NIH- and AHG method FCXM should be used together with the NIH- and AHG method for kidney transplantation.