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Blair,
I haven't seen a single antigen positivity report but I've read about the technique and I think I understand how the testing works.
From what I've read, it's a fairly new technique that's used to detect the presence of anti-HLA antibodies, information that is used to determine the degree of match of a potential transplant donor.
For a successful bone marrow transplant, the antibodies called HLA (human leukocyte antigen) must be matched between donor and patient. The standard technique for this type of crossmatching is flow cytometry, and single antigen testing is reportedly a more sensitive test. The prospects for transplant success can be predicted by testing for anti-HLA antibodies.
The test is sometimes called the Luminex single antigen test, after the company that sells it. In the test, purified donor HLA molecules, which can be of a single HLA type, are attached to magnetic beads. If an antibody from the patient binds to the bead, that's a positive match and indicates a less good donor match.
Does this make sense with what you were told about the purpose of the test? Have a number of potential donors been identified?
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