Sorry for joining the discussion a bit late...but I could not resist from joining this interesting thread. The companies which market their products have various reasons to promote or not to promote Indian/Asian/Caucasian cell Panels. The best way to go forward is to have a metacentric study in India. At least 12-15 Institutes from different parts of the country should participate and data should be looked retrospectively and prospectively. Some Blood Banks have been doing antibody screening using these 'foreign' made cell panels for more than 2 years. I am sure they have vital data. Someone form the fraternity has collect all this....and then analyse. From the literature that I have gone through, even the Americans did it this way before they adoped T&S policy. Also, we have to look at the antigens present in these cell panels, the homozygosity of particular antgens. Its possible that some centres use 2 cells for screenin (for cost cutting) and thus miss certain antigens in homozygous dose, thus AB screen is negative and XM is incompatible. The storage of cell..due to heat or humidity.... might destroy certain antigens. The problem is, we only look for what we want to find. So we are only looking for Mi(a) and Diego...where as there might be something else as well.
