The Comparable Cost Data Table for each transplant center lists the price charged by that transplant center for each step in the donor search process. These services are necessary in order to provide accurate donor compatibility matching. Some of these steps are only performed once for each search and some of the steps must be repeated for every donor tested on a search. Preliminary Search A preliminary search is a one-time review of all the volunteer donors in the computer system that match the patient on the day of the search. New potential donors are added to the Registry daily, and a search can be repeated as often as desired to obtain updated reports.
All preliminary searches are free of charge.
The formal search is the activation of the donor information from the preliminary search results. Only an NMDP-approved Transplant Center can formalize a search. Each night the patient's antigens will be compared to all the donors in the Registry to identify any potential matches from donors newly added to the Registry or just released from other patients' searches. This step may include one test to several dozen or more tests, depending on the number of potentially-matched donors identified. Confirmatory typing determines whether the donor is of suitable transplant match quality.