Publication details
Donor specific anti-HLA antibodies and cardiac allograft vasculopathy: A prospective study using highly automated 3-D optical coherence tomography analysis
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Transplant Immunology |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966327420301489?via%3Dihub |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trim.2020.101340 |
| Keywords | Cardiac allograft vasculopathy; Donor specific antibodies; Heart transplant; Intimal thickness |
| Description | Introduction: Recent studies suggested potential positive correlations between HLA-specific antibodies and development of cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV). Methods: This prospective two-center study investigated early progression of CAV by coronary optical coherence tomography in 1 month and 12 months after heart transplantation (HTx) in 104 patients. Detection and characterization of donor specific (DSA) and MHC class-I polypeptide-related sequence A (MICA) antibodies were performed before, 1, 6 and 12 months after transplantation. Results: During the first post-HTx year, we observed a significant reduction in the mean coronary luminal area (P < .001), and progression in mean intimal thickness (IT) (P < .001). DSA and anti-MICA occurred in 17% of all patients, but no significant relationship was observed between presence of DSA/anti-MICA and IT progression within 12 months after HTx. In contrast, we observed significant association between presence of DSA (p=0.031), de-novo DSA (p=0.031), HLA Class II DSA (p=0.017) and media thickness (MT) progression. Conclusion: Results of our study did not identify a direct association between presence of DSA/anti-MICA and intimal thickness progression in an early period after HTx. However, we found significant relationships between DSA and media thickness progression that may identify a newly recognized immune-pathological aspect of CAV. |