title: Approaches to managing volunteer marrow donor registry HLA data. Algorithms for directing donor center-initiated HLA-DR typing of selected donors.
abstract: The German bone marrow donor center (DKMS) hasrecruited over 732 500 donors during the first 9 years of its existence. Initially, donors were typed for HLA-A and B, and DR typing was only done on request for a patient-initiated search. In 1994, a project was started which led to the donor center-initiated DR typing (DCI-DRT) of >35,000 donors. These donors were selected by donor-specific criteria (age, sex, height and weight) and according to HLA-A and B phenotypes. The latter was done to avoid unnecessary DR typing of the most common A, B phenotypes With a follow up of >6 years, this strategy has led to a number of confirmatory typings (CT) (n=4588) and stem cell harvests (n=568), which is at least comparable to those ensuing after patient-initiated HLA-DR typing (126 000 DR typings, 8,213 CTs, 888 resulting in stem-cell donation). DCI-DRT seems to be a cost-effective strategy which may help to reduce search times and improve search outcome, and improve the overall efficiency of donor center operations
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D019295:Computational Biology; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006684:HLA-DR Antigens / Q000235:genetics; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007125:Immunogenetics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014019:Tissue Donors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D006684:HLA-DR Antigens