Dr. Dan Hauzenberger, Medical Director, Section of Transplantation Immunology at Sweden’s Karolinska University Hospital, on how new, highly sensitive and precise methods for mixed chimerism analytics are transforming post-transplant monitoring, enabling earlier detection and treatment to improve and save the lives of transplanted patients. He also discusses why Karolinska decided to replace their STR-PCR and qPCR methods with a single, NGS-based method and the benefits achieved by doing so.
For at least 15 years Karolinska’s Transplantation Immunology Laboratory has used a combination of STR-PCR and qPCR, two well-established methods for detecting mixed chimerism. Both have clear advantages and disadvantages. The STR-PCR-based methods generally show high precision but a restricted limit of detection (LOD); qPCR on the other hand exhibits a high sensitivity but poor precision, especially at higher levels of mixed chimerism.
"While I am delighted about the increased efficiency and cost reductions we’ve achieved in the laboratory, I am even more excited about the sharper diagnostic tools we can now offer clinicians."
Dr. Dan Hauzenberger, M.D., Ph.D. Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden