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AN OVERVIEW OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF HLA ANTIBODIES IN THE CANADIAN SOUTHERN ALBERTA RENAL TRANSPLANT POPULATION.
Charlene Ott MLT ¹, Luz Stamm BSC ¹, Serdar Yilmaz MD ², Iwona Galaszkiewicz BSC ¹ and Noureddine Berka PhD ¹. ¹ Tissue Typing, Calgary Laboratory Services, Calgary, AB, Canada and ² Department of Transplantation, Southern Alberta Transplant Program, Calgary, AB, Canada .

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The sensitization of renal transplant patients in the form of antihuman leukocyte antigen (HLA) antibodies often constitutes significant risk to allograft function, in many cases delaying transplantation for years.
A total of 142 active patients currently listed on the Southern Alberta Transplant Database (Altrabase), were categorized by Blood Groups and analyzed for HLA antibodies.
Inclusion criteria included Class I, Panel Reactive Antibody (PRA) of 10-100%, previous sensitization episodes and previous grafts. We also analyzed Class II antibodies for these group of patients.

	Patients	Class I PRA	Class II PRA	Previous Grafts	Previous Sensitization
Group O	69	14	12	10	3
Group A	42	12	6	7	5
Group B	28	5	4	3	2
Group AB	3	1	1	1	0
Total	142	34	23	21	10

Analysing our data, 86% of Blood Group O, showed correlation between the presence of Class I and Class II antibodies and previous transplants. 15% of Class I antibodies were due to other sensitization episodes. In Blood Group A and B, 50% of Class I and Class II antibodies showed correlation with previous grafts while the other 50% of Class I antibodies were due to other sensitization episodes.
Our findings demonstrate that distribution of antibodies correlate with previous graft and are not Blood Group specific. Between 20-30% of patients in our program are sensitized for HLA antibodies similar to previous findings in the literature