Immunologic monitoring of cardiac transplant recipients by a modified reactive leukocyte blastogenesis assay (MRLB)

Information obtained from the postoperative assessment of human recipients of cardiac allografts with the MRLB assay indicates that this method of immunologic monitoring correlates very well with other 'standard' indices of graft rejection that are in current clinical use. Furthermore, the MRLB assay is able to detect impending graft rejection approximately 5 days before other nonimmunolgic means of monitoring the recipient rejection response. However, the high degree of sensitivity of the MRLB assay results in a certain level of false positivity, which is on the order of 20%-25%. Therefore, the primary clinical application of the MRLB assay may be to encourage the clinician to aggressively diagnose graft rejection with additional diagnostic techniques in order that earlier and more efficient immunosuppressive therapy might be administered.