Annual Report of Korean Association of External Quality Assessment Service on Histocompatibility Testing (2018)

ABSTRACT

Here, we report the results of the first histocompatibility proficiency testing (PT) performed by the Korean Association of External Quality Assessment Service in 2018. The directly prepared PT specimens of whole blood, sera, and mononuclear cell suspensions were distributed to participants biannually. The number of participants was comparable to that in the previous external PT program, and the response rate was 88%–100%. The accuracy rates for human leukocyte antigen (HLA) A, B, C, DR, and DQ low and high resolution typing were 100%/100%, 100%/98%, 100%/99%, and 99%/98%, respectively; HLA-B27 typing, 99.1%; T cell and B cell crossmatching, 3.1% and 6.0%, respectively; and HLA antibody screening and identification, 100% and 100%, respectively. The results of HLA crossmatching were not reported from four participants due to poor cell viability. Further improvements of the specimen delivery process, grading criteria for crossmatching, and format of participant summary are warranted.