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Donor Selection

Indiscernible benefit of high-resolution HLA typing in improving long-term clinical outcome of unrelated umbilical cord blood transplant

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 40, pages 201–208 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The success of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation depends in part on the accuracy of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching between the donor–recipient pair. The higher the number of matching HLA alleles, the smaller the chance that the transplant recipient will develop complications. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) transplantation was noted to result in a remarkably low frequency and severity of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and graft rejection compared to that in unrelated bone marrow transplant recipients. At present most banks match UCB donors for respective recipients by HLA-A, -B low-resolution typing and -DRB1 high-resolution typing. We retrospectively conducted high-resolution sequence-based HLA typing on DNA samples available from 65 Chinese UCB-recipient pairs typed previously by using low-resolution sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes and sequence-specific primers, and evaluated the clinical outcome. High-resolution typing revealed imperceptible HLA alleles that were hardly identified in low-resolution typing. Univariate analyses demonstrated no significant correlation between the extents of high-resolution HLA disparity with engraftment, graft failure, acute GvHD, transplant-related mortality and long-term 6-year overall survival. Data from the study suggest that high-resolution typing for HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 contributed no substantial improvement to UCB transplant outcome. Low-resolution typing appears to be amenable to matching UCB-recipient pairs without compromising the quality of transplant.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the clinicians of 24 transplant centers in China for performing UCB transplants and providing clinical data of 65 patients in this study, namely; The Second Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=18); Anhui Provincial Hospital, Hefei, Anhui Province (n=11); Shanghai Children's Medical Center, Shanghai (n=4); The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=4); Guangzhou Maternal and Neonatal Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=3); Lu Dao Pei Ward, Affiliated Hospital, Peking University, Beijing (n=3); Peking Children's Hospital, Beijing (n=2); Naval General Hospital, Beijing (n=2); Guangdong Provincial People Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=2); Guangzhou First Municipal People's Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=2); Affiliated Xijing hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xian, Shanxi Province (1); Affiliated Hospital of Guiyang Medical College, Guiyang, Guizhou Province (n=1); The 12th Municipal People's Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=1); Haikou People Hospital, Haikou, Hainan Province (n=1); Henan Cancer Hospital, Zhengzhou, Henan Province (n=1); Institute of Hematology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei Province (n=1); Military General Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=1); Nanfang Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=1); Soochow University Affiliated Children's hospital, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province (n=1); The First People's Hospital of Foshan, Foshan, Guangdong Province (n=1); The Second Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=1); The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (n=1); Tongji Hospital of Tongji Medical College, Wuhan, Hubei Province (n=1) and West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province (n=1).

This work was supported in part by funding of projects #96-Z-64-1 and #2003C34006 of Guangdong Provincial Scientific Technological Committee, the project #99-Z-008-01 of Guangzhou Scientific Technological Committee, Five Ones Project #1996-23 of Guangdong Provincial Health Bureau and the scientific technological project of Guangzhou Health Bureau in 1996, China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangzhou Cord Blood Bank, Guangzhou Medical College, Guangzhou Maternal and Neonatal Hospital, Guangzhou, China

    C Liao, J Y Wu, Z P Xu, Y Li, X Yang, J S Chen, X W Tang, S L Gu & Y N Huang

  2. Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Beijing, China

    P H Tang

  3. Department of Anatomical and Cellular Pathology, Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Prince of Wales Hospital, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    K S Tsang

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  1. C Liao
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Correspondence to C Liao.

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Liao, C., Wu, J., Xu, Z. et al. Indiscernible benefit of high-resolution HLA typing in improving long-term clinical outcome of unrelated umbilical cord blood transplant. Bone Marrow Transplant 40, 201–208 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1705711

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