The collaborative renal-transplantation program for HLA matching of donors and recipients yielded an increased rate of one-year graft survival and an estimated half-life for matched grafts twice that for mismatched grafts. An increased role for HLA matching in kidney allocation is therefore indicated.
The use of an HLA allocation system will not add to the cost of renal transplantation, but it will improve the long-term results to the same extent as cyclosporine. We propose the initiation of a national kidney-sharing system based on hierarchical levels of HLA matches.
Inserting two new HLA-matching categories into the UNOS point system for cadaveric kidney allocation would increase the number of patients for whom matches could be found in local pools.
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