[Donor selection for allogenic bone marrow transplantation from 1991 to 1995. (The Prague Center for Bone Marrow Transplantation)].

BACKGROUND: The prerequisite of successful transplantation of haematopoietic stem cells is to find a suitable, i.e. HLA matched bone marrow donor. In the submitted paper the authors give an account of the strategy of selection of bone marrow donors, as practised by the Prague transplantation group. METHODS AND RESULTS: In 1991 to 1995 (end of first quarter) the authors sought suitable bone marrow donors for 421 patients where an allogenic bone marrow transplantation was indicated. During that period 95 transplantations were performed (22.5% of all indicated cases), incl. 82 from siblings (86.3%) of the implemented allogenic bone marrow transplantations). A HLA matched donor from the wider family circle was selected for 15 donors, transplantation were performed in 6 patients (6.4% of the implemented allogenic bone marrow transplantations). An unrelated bone marrow donor was sought for 41 patients as no donor was found in the wider family. Transplantation was implemented in 7 of these patients (7.3% of the implemented transplantations. CONCLUSIONS: With the increasing experience of our transplantation centre, no doubt, the ratio of other than sibling transplantations of bone marrow will increase. At present it accounts for 13.7%. The task of our HLA group must be selection of donors matched as well as possible with the recipient according to all available tests of tissue compatibility - from the wider family circle as well as from the register of unrelated donors.