The role of HLA-antigens in susceptibility to hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is still being debated. We analyzed HLA phenotype frequencies in two major ethnic groups, namely Egyptian and Saudi nationals. The Egyptian group included 110 patients of whom 55 were HCV positive and the other 55 were HCV negative (control group). The Saudi group included 146 HCV-positive patients and 122 HCV-negative individuals (control group). The results for the Egyptian population revealed increased frequencies of some HLA phenotypes and decreased frequencies of others but without any statistically significant difference. In contrast, in the Saudi population, the HLA-A19 phenotype was significantly increased in the HCVpositive patients when compared with the control group, while significantly decreased frequencies were found for HLA-B8, HLA-DRI and HLA-DR3. Our data suggest that there was no significant association between the HLA phenotypes and the susceptibility to HCV infection among the Egyptian population, while the overall data of the Saudi population seem to indicate that the expression of particular HLA-alleles could be associated with the susceptibility or resistance to the HCV infection. Further studies on larger numbers of patients are needed to support the role of the HLA system in HCV infection. A total of 108 HCV-positive patients underwent renal transplantation at the Jeddah Kidney Center, and the results were compared with 100 age-and sex-matched controls. Graft survival at 36 months was 82% and 86% for the HCV positive and control subjects, respectively, while the patient survival rate was, respectively, 90% and 91%. Our data suggest that the outcome, at least in the short-term, of renal transplantation in HCV-positive patients is very good. Abstract no.: 2 XENOTRANSPLANTATION: A VIEW TO THE PAST AND AN UNREALIZED PROMISE TO THE FUTURESince the early 20th Century when Emerich Ullman transplanted a pig kidney into the arm of a woman (1902), Princeteau implanted portions of a rabbit kidney into the kidney of a child who was dying of renal insufficiency (1905), Jaboulay transplanted two kidneys from a pig and a goat as donor sources (1906), and Unger implanted a monkey kidney into a human (1910), xenotransplantation has made some strides, mostly related to advanced surgical techniques, improved knowledge of immunological principles, and to steps associated with the development of the most effective immunosuppressive therapy. Innovative surgical techniques were introduced by Alexis Carrel in the first decade of the 1900s, so that vascular anastomoses could be realized without a considerable amount of thrombotic/embolic problems, long before heparin times. Inasmuch as these advances were soundly characterized, it became evident that the results were far from expected and that the time was not ripe for xenotransplantation. It took a further 50 years (1963) before Keith Reemtsma transplanted 13 kidneys from chimpanzees into patients with kidney failure. Remarkably, one patient survived for 9 months before dying from a...

α-Thalassemia is very common in the Kuwaiti population, but its influence on anemia of pregnancy has not been previously investigated. We have screened a group of 59 anemic (Hb <11 g/dl) pregnant women for the α-thal-2 (–α-3.7 kb) deletion which is the commonest α-thal allele in this community, using a polymerase chain reaction method. A control group of 35 nonanemic (Hb ≥11 g/dl) pregnant women was studied for comparison. All the women were in the second or third trimester of pregnancy. Among the 94 women in both groups, 69 (73.4%) had a normal complement of α-globin genes (αα/αα), 18 (19.1%) were heterozygotes (–α/αα) and 7 (7.4%) were homozygotes (–α/–α) giving an allele frequency of 17.0%. Among the anemic group, there were 44 (74.6%) individuals with a normal genotype, 9 (15.3%) heterozygotes and 6 (10.2%) homozygotes. In the nonanemic group, the corresponding prevalence figures were 25 (71.4%), 9 (25.7%) and 1 (2.9%), respectively. The difference between these distributions was statistically significant (χ² = 37.5, p < 0.0001). However, the mean Hb values were similar in heterozygotes, homozygotes and normal individuals. We, therefore, conclude that while the α-thal trait affects the prevalence of anemia among pregnant Kuwaiti women, it does not affect its severity.