k1065

Thank you all for your comments. To be clear, I do not advocate the removal of the control from the blood grouping test; automated or manual. My interest was sparked following a group conversation on this topic where I was surpried to find that some folk would be comfortable to omit the control, and rely solely on forward vs reverse typing as a check. They were less certain when I challenged them with the scenario of a discrepant blood group!

Hi Malcolm, Totally agree! Hence the worried face at the end of the original post.

I wanted to get some other opinions on this subject - Guidelines say that a diluent control should be used if the antisera used in the grouping contain potentiators, if a cold auto-antibody is present or where it is recommended by the manufacturer of the reagent. Please correct me if I am wrong here. Most (if not all technologies) incorporate a negative control directly as part of the test. So, assuming the test is automated, without the option to add a control to each test, how would people feel about the removal of this control? Thanks

Thanks Malcolm, Thats great and very helpful.

In the UK, D testing is performed on donors using antisera capable of detecting DIV, DV and DVI types. Such patients are grouped as RhD positive. This is due to the high likelihood of immunisation should an RhD negative individual recive blood from one of these donors. On the patient testing side, the antisera used for D grouping should not detect DVI and such patients would be grouped as RhD negative. The BSH guidelines specify that antisera which does not detect DVI should be used in pre-transfusion testing however mentions nothing regarding the ability of the antisera to detect DIV and DV. Why on the patient testing side are we not concerned about DIV and DV when such donors are specifically being targeted? Many thanks