Major histocompatibility complex of the dog

Abstract

Nowadays everybody has become familair with the procedure of blood transfusion.\\nIt is not always appreciated, however, that transfusions are equivalent to\\ntransplantations. This latter term is commonly reserved for the more spectacular\\ntransplantations of kidney, liver or heart, in which an organ from a deceased\\nindividual is given to a living human patient in need of such an organ.\\nIt has become generally accepted that before blood of a given donor can be given\\nto a particular patient investigations have to be done to exclude a possible\\nharmful effect of the blood on the recipient. The impressive bloodbanking institutes\\nall over the world are in themselves convincing examples of the impor~\\nlance of finding compatible blood for each individual patient. ln theory compatibility\\ntests between donor and recipient would also seem to be indicated foi\\nsolid organ transplantations just as for tranfusions. In practice compatibility\\ntests (or in other words donor selection) are not performed by all teams involved\\nin transplantation in humans. Major reasons for this negative attitude towards\\ndonor selection for organ grafting are probably that l) it appears to be a complicated\\nart to the uninitiated and 2) no clear cut beneficial effect of donor\\nselection could be demonstrated in some of the first clinical trials with human\\nkidney transplantation. However, in a number of other studies a favourable\\neffect of donor selection has been found.\\nThe experimental studies described in this thesis were initiated with the purpose\\nof obtaining a model in an outbred experimental animal, in which the doubts on\\nthe usefulness of donor selection for organ transplantation could be evaluated.