Patients with chimerism--immunologic detection of bone marrow acceptance

The establishment of the ABO chimerism (two populations of erythrocytes deviating in ABO antigens) following a bone marrow transplantation represents a simple rapid method for the proof of the transplant acceptance. A remarkable case was described in which in a patient with hypoplasia of the bone marrow in the peripheral blood there exist two deviating in ABO antigens populations of erythrocytes (AB blood corpuscles of the patient and B erythrocytes of the donor) still 4 1/2 years after the transplantation of the bone marrow. This fact speaks for the simultaneous existence of the own bone marrow as well as of the bone marrow of the donor in the patient.