Flow Cytometry Analysis and Crossmatch Detection Techniques in Transplantation

The relevance of anti-human leucocyte antigen (anti-HLA) antibodies in the outcome of organ transplantation has been recognized in the past 40 years. Detection of these antibodies in sensitized recipients plays a pivotal role in this issue. Flow cytometry analysis is one of the choice cell-based techniques together with the pioneer complementdependent cytotoxicity crossmatch. Here, we discuss the advantages and limits of these cell-based assays and their use in the clinical laboratory of immunology of transplantation. Moreover, we compared this approach to other beads-based detection assays introduced more recently in the laboratory practice.