Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) is a special therapy used to treat patients with hematological diseases and certain genetic disorders. For a transplant to be successful, it is necessary, among others factors, to have compatibility of the molecules coded by HLA genes. In general, the best prognosis for BMT is obtained with HLA-identical siblings. The aim of this work was to evaluate the percentage of compatibility between patients and possible related bone marrow donors in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. The data were collected from the records of patient treated between 2000 and 2007 in the Immunogenetic Laboratory of the Hematology Centre of Santa Catarina (Hemosc). A total of 469 cases of patients waiting for BMT were identified. For these, 2463 possible related donors were screened with 49.8% being siblings of the patients. There was compatibility with a member of the patient's family in 213 (45.4%) cases: 99% of the compatibility was established with siblings, 0.7% with the mother and 0.3% with an uncle. Evaluating the donors, a total of 1230 siblings were screened for donation of which 296 (24.06%) presented compatibility with the patient for whom HLA typing had been carried out. These data show that the possibility of finding a compatible donor in the patient's family, in the State of Santa Catarina, is somewhat promising, especially among siblings.
Bone marrow transplant; HLA compatibility; family donors
