title: Computations for a best match strategy for kidney transplantation.
abstract: In some cases success or failure of a proposed innovation in transplantation may be better judged if we consider the average survival time of the graft rather than the actuarial survival at a point in time. It is suggested that HLA matching may be an example of such a case and that the possible clinical benefits of modest improvements in matching may have been underestimated. Calculations are made that show that transplanting to the best match available in a pool of 100 patients might increase the expected graft survival time by more than 1 year.
mesh_terms: D006085:Graft Survival; D006680:HLA Antigens; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing; D006801:Humans; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013997:Time Factors; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous
chemical_list: D006680:HLA Antigens