Is repeated mismatching at regrafting deleterious

We reviewed our clinical experience of allowing kidney regrafting with a repeated HLA mismatch. We also permitted a weakly positive B-cell cross-match. All patients who received a second or subsequent renal graft (n=92) between January 1985 and June 1990 were analysed for graft survival. The overall 1-year graft survival was 70%. A repeated mismatch occurred in 29 of the patients at at least one HLA locus and their 1-year graft survival was 66%. The balance of the regrafts (63) were performed without a repeated mismatch, and their 1-year graft survival was 70%. Even a weakly positive B-cell cross-match was deleterious; when a grafting with a repeated mismatch was performed only one out of five grafts survived. Our results indicate that retransplantation of renal grafts with a repeated mismatch in the HLA A or B locus can be performed without a negative influence on transplant outcome provided that both the T- and B-cell cross-matches are negative.