Search Determinants - Retired
The Search Determinants tool has been retired as part of the recent website developments. The information provided by the tool was based on Release 2.14.1, which was made in January-2007. The following text has been retained for information purposes only.
Registries and cord blood banks around the world collect and store the HLA types of volunteers in order to identify matched unrelated donors for patients requiring haemopoietic stem cell transplantation. The HLA assignments of volunteers are received in many formats depending on 1) whether the types were obtained by serology or by DNA-based methods and 2) the panel of reagents used in the assay which determines the resolution of the test results (high vs. intermediate vs. low resolution). Registries must take these diverse assignments and identify which of them is most likely to actually match the HLA assignments of a searching patient. This comparison is usually facilitated by the conversion of assignments to "search determinants" before matching algorithms are performed. Joint project of the National Marrow Donor Program, the World Marrow Donor Association and NETCORD. Further discussion of search determinants and their use can be found: