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I worked with Harvey at a hospital in Boston. Then when he went out on his own, we worked together to develop several products. One was corrugated plastic boxes to put in Igloo coolers that kept the blood away from the ice. He bought sheets of plastic and experimented with welding and gluing the boxes together. We finally got one that worked, so we bought a ton of them from him. Then we moved on to Credo coolers. He was great like that. We'd present a problem, he'd help us build it, and then he'd often add it to his product list. Yes, he made us custom racks, but those have all died, and I have not been with that hospital for a while now, so I am not sure what they are doing.

Andrew Hadley and Peter Soothill (Editors). Alloimmune disorders of pregnancy. Anaemia, thrombocytopenia and neutropenia in the fetus and newborn. 1st edition. 2002. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 0 521 78120 5. Failing that, send them back to Nursery School, because it is THAT simple!

Thank you all for the welcome! 😁

If the infusion center is part of the hospital and served by the hospital transfusion service, they do not need a separate FDA registration because they are not a transfusion service. The FDA does not regulate nor inspect infusion centers. They regulate and inspect transfusion services and blood banks. Provision of products to an infusion center would not require FDA registration per se. That is determined by what services you provide overall.

Hi and thanks for your replies. Sorry for not updating - i've been off work. Our enzyme method is papainised cells tested using BioRad NaCl cards. A follow-up sample reacted exactly the same for us but the reference lab report a unspecified antibody by IAT and enzyme IAT, don't say they cannot exclude anti-D or anti-E and require no further samples this pregnancy. Rich

https://www.bio-rad.com/en-us/product/id-working-tables?ID=M17LIB15 Home Products Clinical Diagnostics Blood Typing & Antibody Detection Semi Automated Systems and Manual Workplace ID-Working Tables Bio-Rad has Gel and Tube Racks that should work, maybe better. "ID-Working Tables" item 009660 You will have to log in at their website to get the price. Hope this helps.

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Wescott Labs used to custom make them, Sadly, Harvey passed away and his wife gave up the business.

Over the years have I discovered that information like this is best provided to physicians by physicians. There were a few that recognized my knowledge and expertise on the subject but the vast majority did not and some were even reluctant to get it from my blood bank medical directors. I would recommend having your medical director provide the book recommended by Malcolm. I wish I had a copy in my library when I was still working. Good luck. Let us know what you end up doing and how it goes. I'm sure that this kind of problem will be with us for ever! Malcolm, you are correct, the info is relatively simple. It's getting them to step down, swallow their pride and listen that makes it difficult!

I'm retired, so no more policies for me. While what you say makes sense, and is logical to include in your training, I am not aware of a requirement for it. It was always a balance between adding more elements to the training plans, and getting staff trained, competent, and working. I ran a large facility, and we were always understaffed by about 8 people, that's a lot out of 42 FTEs.

This was a fun one.

I was involved in starting the first MedFlight blood transport on their helicopters and ground ambulance in MA (it was a while back). Initially, FDA made us get a distribution registration for each of their four facilities. Our blood bank was only registered, not licensed, so we needed a contract with ARC (our primary supplier), to get in units from them each week as MedFlight often went over state lines. FDA said they would only allow that in rare circumstances, and since this was pre-planned, and frequent, we could not ship units from our donor center. About a year in, FDA changed their minds and said we did not need registrations for the MedFlight facilities. The Joint Commission did spend a fair amount of time there though.

agree with @Neil Blumberg. We courier blood / platelets to our off site infusion centers on a daily basis and also to our small sister facilities that might need products. none of them have a separate FDA registration. We also send out WB, Plasma and RBC's on neighboring county EMS units and our in house Air units and none of them need FDA registration. Our medical director checked with his FDA "connection" and they sent an email stating as such.

Does anyone have a lead where I can find the gel crossmatch rack? Marketlab has none. I tried Fisher Scientific.. nothing. I am looking for this type of crossmatch rack where I can do tube and gel on the side... Orto doesn't have one either.. Help. Thank you!

Thank you so much everyone!

I just answered this question. My Score PASS I remember this well, and played it over and over again when I first started work in the early to mid 1970's. THAT has just ruined any positive reputation I may have had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gosh this topic is kinda of wild, lol

I didn't realize he passed away either! Had called him about the MTS tips being unavailable suddenly and spoke to his wife - she didn't sound good. Now I know why. Thanks for the bio-rad info KBBB

Immucor (Werfen) supplies you with all the validation documents that you need in a nice binder. You just need to fill out all of the forms and attach the print-outs.

Hello Ncjane, Welcome to PathLabTalk. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Ncjane joined on the 01/07/2025. View Member

Hi, If you want to send me a personal message with your prior account info, and which account you'd like to keep, I can merge them for you. You do not need to do this, but some people who have prior posts, like to have them all under one account. Cliff

Thanks y'all! I'm a previous member that lost access to the email I had signed up with. Excited to get back in

Welcome to this FANTASTIC site Ncjane. Educating others is such a noble calling, and I hope we can all help you with your own calling to education. ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!

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I just had a thought that might help. Some one on staff surly has a kid or grandkid with a 3D printer. I imagine they could make you a couple exactly how you want them. I have a 9 year old grandson who made me some boxes for 3 different sizes of shotgun shells. They don't look all that different from what you are looking for. Something to check into.

That's a VERY specialized rack. I suspect the originals must have come from Ortho many moons ago. If Ortho doesn't have any more, I doubt any of the typical suppliers would carry them. Perhaps one of the new suppliers of gel cards might have something (e.g., Grifols) ? One can always get something custom-made, but $$$$$. Good luck.

From a letter to the editor author Marcos Paulo Miola 2012 www.rbhh.org: "The LW and Rh antigens are phenotypically related in such a way that RhD+adult individuals express the anti-LW much more strongly than RhD- individuals. The expression of LW antigens may be depressed without any apparent reason during pregnancy and in some hematologic diseases (Hodgkin’s, leukemias, lymphomas, sarcomas), regaining the normal or almost normal expression after pregnancy and with remission of the diseases(4). The LW antibodies are not uncommon; they may be produced without apparent exposure during the suppression periods of antigens, generally associated with other antibodies. They are generally IgG, do not cause hemolysis, do not activate the complement system, react to anti-human globulin (AHG) and present strong reactions with RhD+red cells and may or may not react with RhD-. The LW antigens are resistant to papain and chloroquine treatment but are denatured by treatment with 0.2m dithiothreitol (DTT)(5,6). To distinguish anti-LW from anti-D, red blood cells must be treated with DTT (it denatures LW antigens but not Rh) and/or test with red cells from umbilical cord blood (as umbilical cord blood presents a high expression of LW antigens, the anti-LW reacts well with RhD+and RhD- cells)(6,7)."

Just a suggestion; see if your pathologist can find something that would/could be part of a physician's continuing education. The doctor's equivalent of our ASCP credits.

Anti-Lw? Don't know much about it - but I'm pretty sure it "looks" like a D - but then it's not................just googled and found this: when testing for anti-LW, a key step is to use enzyme-treated cells to confirm its presence by observing a reduced or absent reaction compared to untreated cells

Which proteolytic enzyme do you use? I presume, as you are working in the Isle of Man, you use papain, but I just want to check.

Hello everyone, Here is a new 100% educational opportunity (with PACE credits) for those who are interested in FNAIT. Here is the link to register Webinar | Bio-Rad

Switch back to the patient's own ABO type as soon as possible is my advice. For everything. RBC, platelets, cryo, plasma. Worrying about the anti-A and anti-B in low titer whole blood is relevant, but so is the smaller amount of incompatible plasma in group O red cells, which are not low titer. There are rare reports of severe hemolytic reactions to group O red cells in non-O patients. Furthermore, the patient is continually making their own group A, B or AB red cells, so hesitancy about transfusing their own ABO type is not helping things get better. By giving additional group O products we are making the problem worse, not adding safety in any way. Furthermore, the non-O patient's endothelial cells, platelets, von Willebrand factor, hepatocytes, etc. are all incompatible with the transfused group O plasma, and their function is impaired when modeled in vitro, and leads to increased bleeding. Thus there is no benefit whatever in giving group O red cells (or whole blood for that matter) to non-O patients once the hemorrhagic problem is largely under control. And there is likely added risk. It is only adding harm and reducing the inventory of group O blood for group O recipients. A total mistake of the last few decades in my opinion. Giving group O plasma containing products to non-Os is only reasonable when you don't know the patient's blood group, or don't have their blood group in stock, or it's an emergency with no time for giving type specific. No one ever went broke overestimating the importance of the ABO blood group in transfusion. See attached for the literature references. ABO trauma commentary Frontiers bioengineering.pdf Reconsider ABO compatible:universal donor.pdf ABO ARC MAC copy.ppt

At my institution. the Donor Network is now asking for 4-6 units of RBCs for organ perfusion for their machine after the organ has been harvested (similar to ECMO for the organ). Those RBC units will not ever touch the organ donor patient. Our policy is to always issue them the oldest O Pos units (uncrossmatched) we have on our shelf. They will rinse all of this banked blood out of the organ before transplanting it into the recipient, and it is added to the perfusate solution to provide oxygenation to the organ during transport from the donor hospital to the recipient hospital. AABB offered at least 1 very informative session at their annual meeting on this last year in Nashville, and I'm guessing that they will offer more in Houston this year (or perhaps an eCast session or articles in AABB News or Transfusion) since this practice is becoming more and more widespread. The unique nature of the process is proving to be a challenge for hospital transfusion services as far as who places the order, what testing is needed (if any), tracking for final disposition, what kind of records need to be kept because they are not being "transfused", billing of the products, etc..

Giving O units (or A2) keeps our computer happier on patients with documented anti-A1. Of course, that is the prime objective these days, right? We bow to our computers!

There is absolutely no reason to give group O red cells to a recipient who is A3. Even if the patient does develop an anti-A1, unless that antibody is reactive at strictly 37oC, they can still receive A1 red cells, but, if the anti-A1 does react at 37oC, there is no reason not to transfuse with A2 red cells that are IAT compatible. Personally, I have never seen loss of A or B antigens through ALL, but I have with AML. In fact, in one case, we were able to follow whether the patient was in remission or relapse by the strength of the reaction of the A antigen with various anti-A reagents, but this was many years ago, and I honestly can't remember whether these were human-derived polyclonal reagents or early monoclonal reagents.