Sherry Quintey

We also run a DAT on the ECHO. This way it is run with the same methodology.

We are looking for a used hand held tube sealer. Does anyone have one that they are not using? Or does anyone have suggestions about where to get one? We are trying to get our donor program up and running. Still waiting for capital equipment approval for the heat sealer. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks John for the information! We have decided to do our own counts manually.

We have recently acquired an ALYX for doing single and double red cell collections. We need to validate the leukoreduction of the red cell products. Does anyone have information on a lab that will do flow cytometry wbc testing? Thanks!

We have been having a problem with Cor QC on the ECHO (lot # 236117). QC tube #2 wich is B Negative comes up as 1+ on D4 and negative on D5. QC becomes invalid. We changed the D4 vial incase it was contaminated, could not change D4 lot because we only had 1 lot. We called Immucor several times. We were told that only 1 other hospital had reported a problem with this lot. They finally sent us a new lot of Cor QC. It worked fine! Has anyone else had an issue with the Cor QC and invalid types?

Malcolm, We recently had a patient that had a previous WAA that returned 5 years later. Antibody screen is negative. Would you still give phenotipically matched packed cells? If we have a patient with no history at our facility and a negative screen, how do we know that they didn't have a previous WAA ?? If we get a negative screen, we say hooray and move on. This topic has caused some debate at our facility. Thank you for your input!

At our facility we are having a discussion about transfusing WAA patients. When the WAA is expressing we give phenotypically (for Rh and Kell) matched packed cells. When the antibody screen is negative is it necessary to continue with phenotypically matched packed cells?

Yes, it is not necessary to reconfirm previously identified antibodies, but we run 1 positive cell to see if it is still reacting. If it is not reacting we put a comment in the patient's history so the next time we see the patient, we start with a Type & screen. We are a community hospital that has generalists covering the Blood Bank on evening and night shifts. This is to give them some direction. That way they can proceed with antigen typing units for the crossmatch.

Mary, We still follow the 3 rule on the ECHO for newly identified antibodies. Occasionally we will have to run a couple of cells manually (we also use PeG) to complete the ruleouts or confirmation. We have found that the Ready Id works well for most antibodies. If it is a previously identified antibody, we only require 1 cell so we know if it is still expressing.

We are still in the validation and training phase with our Echo, but we are planning to run a DAT with a panel.