| Theme | Renal Transplantation under New Organ Sharing System in Japan | |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Histocompatibility test and recipient selection policies in the JKTN | |
| Publish Date | 1997/11 | |
| Author | Hidehiko Kashiwabara | Department of Surgery, National Sakura Hospital |
| [ Summary ] | Kidney transplantation is one of the treatment options for chronic renal failure. To promote cadaveric renal transplantation in Japan, graft survival must be improved and an organ procurement system is required to distribute the organs fairly. The Japan Kidney Transplant Network (JKTN), was established in 1995 to function as the national recipient registry for patients waiting for kidney transplantation and to serve as a computer network providing graft allocations. The JKTN is designed to list patients needing kidney transplants on the computer according to the following policies; 1) the same ABO blood type 2) the quality of the HLA match (the number of matches between the recipient's antigens and the donor's antigen) 3) the waiting time (the time since entry) If a perfect HLA match (6 matches) recipient is listed on the computer, the kidney shoud be transported to the patient nationwide. When it is certain that the recipient hospital will use the kidney according to the negative data of the final direct lymphocyte cros smatch, the JKTN can decide to transport the graft to the recipient hospital. About 350 kidney grafts were transplanted through the new system is the last two years and the policies of graft allocation should be reevaluted based on the results of graft survival. |
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