To find the best pairings possible, MatchGrid pulled in data from a pool of potential donors and recipients in the Sutter Health network in the Bay Area, churning through their medical variables to isolate every possible compatible pair.
The first variable to match is obvious: blood type. The four types—A, B, AB, and O—have different rules about who can donate to whom, based on the immune system-stimulating antigens that appear on the surface of red blood cells. In this case, the donor who kicked off the chain was special: She was type O, which meant she could donate to anyone. That opened up far more transplant opportunities than otherwise might have been possible. “When we inserted this blood type O non-directed donor into the program, 140 different chains popped up,” says Steven Katznelson, medical director of the kidney transplant team.
From those 140 potential chains of patients, the software winnowed its set of participants based on patients’ other antigenic signatures. MatchGrid includes 14 of those antigens—specifically, human leukocyte antigens—in its matching calculations. Those are markers that appear on the surface of immune cells, commonly used to determine compatibility between organ donors and recipients. Ideally, donor and recipient will express exactly the same set, since any unfamiliar antigen will invoke an immune reaction, potentially contributing to transplant rejection. Unless the transplant is between identical twins, that’s almost impossible, though, so MatchGrid builds its chains to create as much overlap as possible.
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