Manage HLA typing information
Intended audience: hla technologist
HLA typing results indicate the genetic typing for a donor or recipient at the specific genetic loci that are important for organ transplants.
You can add or update HLA typing results for both donors and recipients.
Adding HLA typing results
To add HLA typing information for a donor or recipient:
Go to the donor’s or recipient’s profile, then select HLA Information > Typing on the sidebar.
Under Entries, select the HLA Lab that performed the testing, and enter any general Comments about the donor’s or recipient's typing.
If you are with an HLA Lab, the HLA Lab is set to your lab automatically.
Select the testing Technique used to determine the donor’s or recipient's typing.
When you select a testing technique, it populates the Testing Technique value for all of the loci. However, you can change the values for individual loci, if some were tested with another technique.
If the donor’s or recipient's typing is still in progress or otherwise incomplete, you can enter partial results by selecting the Typing Incomplete check box.
Checking this box allows you to enter typing information from laboratories that only test certain loci, even before the donor or recipient's full HLA typing is available.
For each locus (row) enter the alleles found by entering them in a Molecular, Most Likely Allele, or Serologic format, depending on the test results you are entering.
If necessary, change the Testing Technique and/or add a Comment for the locus.
When you enter a molecular value, the corresponding serological value, as identified in the HLA Dictionary, is automatically populated; if necessary, you can update that value.
When you enter a most likely allele value, both the corresponding molecular and serological values are automatically populated, and can also be updated manually if necessary.
You can modify the automatically entered values as needed.
Note: if you need to reenter the values for a locus, you must first delete the entries in the Molecular, Serological, and Most Likely Allele fields before entering the new values; otherwise the system will not update the corresponding values correctly.
The value “--” (double hyphen) is considered a valid value.
The Bw4 and Bw6 epitopes are automatically marked as being present if appropriate values are entered in the typing. Override these values by selecting the Override check box and selecting the appropriate value, if necessary.
For the DRB3*, DRB4*, and DRB5* loci, users can enter values other than “--” in a maximum of two of the six DRB345 values. No minimum number of DRB345 values must be positive, so you can enter “--” for four, five, or all six of these rows.
When you have completed entering the typing information, select the Save HLA Typing button.
To cancel, select the return to previous page icon or browse to any other page without saving. Any unsaved information is discarded.
The system saves the typing results. They will be used in future allocations to help identify best fits between donors and recipients.
If the system has marked any typing values as invalid, you cannot save the typing values. Correct the highlighted values before selecting Save HLA Typing again.
Editing HLA typing results
You can edit HLA typing results if they contain erroneous information.
Go to the donor’s or recipient’s profile, then select HLA Information > Typing on the sidebar.
The Entries section shows HLA typing results that have been added to date.
Edit the information under Entries as required.
For detailed instructions, see Adding HLA typing results, above.
Select the Save HLA Typing button.
To cancel, select the return to previous page icon or browse to any other page without saving. Any unsaved information is discarded.