The adverse impact on liver transplantation of using positive cytotoxic crossmatch donors.
Because of the liver graft's ability to resist cytotoxic antibody-mediated rejection, it has become dogma that the conventional transplant crossmatch used to avoid hyperacute rejection of other organs is irrelevant to the liver. We examined this hypothesis in a consecutive series of adult primary liver recipients treated with FK506 and low-dose steroids. Twenty-five of 231 (10.8%) patients received a liver from a cytotoxic-positive crossmatch donor (more than 50% of donor T lymphocytes were killed by dithiothreitol-pretreated recipient serum). The outcome was compared with that of 50 negative crossmatch patients who had their transplantations just before and after the crossmatch positive cases. The one-year graft and patient survivals were 56% and 68%, for positive and 82% and 86% for negative crossmatch patients (P = 0.004, P = 0.03, respectively). The difference between patient and first graft survival was accounted for by retransplantation, which was 4 times more frequent in the positive-crossmatch cases. Histologically, failed allografts obtained at the time of retransplantation revealed a spectrum of pathologic findings related to vascular injury. This study showed a higher difficulty of intraoperative blood product management, a degraded prognosis, and a poorer average quality of ultimate graft function when liver transplantation was performed against positive cytotoxic crossmatches. In such patients for whom crossmatch-negative donors may never be found because of the broad extent and intensity of sensitization, special therapeutic strategies perioperatively must be evolved if results are to improve.
Department of Surgery, Pittsburgh Transplant Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pennsylvania.
S
S
Takaya
O
O
Bronsther
Y
Y
Iwaki
K
K
Nakamura
K
K
Abu-Elmagd
A
A
Yagihashi
A J
AJ
Demetris
M
M
Kobayashi
S
S
Todo
A G
AG
Tzakis
D000328:Adult; D000920:Antibody-Dependent Cell Cytotoxicity; D000937:Antigen-Antibody Reactions; D001788:Blood Grouping and Crossmatching; D001803:Blood Transfusion; D004229:Dithiothreitol / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000187:drug effects; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D008111:Liver Function Tests; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000276:immunology*; D008297:Male; D008775:Methylprednisolone / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008875:Middle Aged; D016559:Tacrolimus / Q000627:therapeutic use
D004229:Dithiothreitol; D016559:Tacrolimus; D008775:Methylprednisolone