BB479

We have been asked to begin performing anti-A titers for Group B kidney transplant candidates. Does anyone have a procedure that they would be willing to share? I have been doing some literature searching this morning, and it appears that the Midwest Transplant Network and Mayo Clinic both have methods that were compared in at least one publication but, as yet, I have not obtained their testing procedures. Until now, we have only been doing titers for prenatal antibodies or HTLA identification so this will be a little different.

We use a 4 hour expiration for the syringes. One big advantage of the syringes over bags is that the neonatal syringes filter the units during the aliquoting process. It is a smaller sized filter than the one in a blood administration set so less blood is "lost" to the filtering process. We discovered that when we sent blood in bags rather than in syringes, the nursery did not realize that they needed to use a standard blood administration set with filter so they were skipping that important process during the blood adminsitration process. (There are pedi sized blood admin sets available for smaller volumes than the adult sets. Our intensive care nursery now stocks the pedi sized blood admin set for times when blood products are issued in bags.)

We had a recent rash of invalid results because the last wash control came up positive (have never, ever seen this in the past...and the eluates on the patients were either negative or showed a clear & expected specificity). We threw out the wash solution two times within a few days because we suspected possible contamination; finally switched to a brand new bottle to store it in as well as just happened to switch to a new lot number of Ortho screening cells about the time of the second switch. Anybody else have this issue?

We are looking to purchase a sterile connecting device (aka "tube welder" to connect on satellite bags or syringes for aliquots, etc.). We've used Terumo products for years and have been very satisfied....but the price on the Genesis TCD is significantly lower than the newest Terumo model. Does anyone have experience they'd like to share regarding either product?

We too are looking to replace a Thermogenesis -- anyone out there at all with any experience with the Plasmatherm thawer? I'd love feedback from someone, even if you have only used it a short time. Or if you considered it but went with an alternative, share your reasons. I already know everyone raves about their Helmer thawers....but our medical director really, really wants a dry thaw process. The microwaves are just too pricey, especially if we need multiple units to thaw big quantities of products for plasma exchange procedures or to handle massive transfusion emergencies.

If the phlebotomist is unsuccessful during the first attempt for a volunteer blood donation, does your facility have a policy to allow a second attemp? If so, how is this handled? (Do you require a different phlebotomist for the second attempt? Do you move the DIN number stickers to a second collection bag or do you record that DIN as an unsucceessful draw/discard with no product collected and use a new DIN for the the second bag?)

It's been a while since this thread was active --- so I'd like to pose the question again and see if there is any more recent experience with the Sahara thawers (I think the current model is Sahara III but not positive). We have received approval to purchase a new thawer to replace our ancient Thermogenesis (which has served us very well, under very heavy use). My director really would prefer a "dry" thaw method due to a bad experience many years ago related to contamination in a water bath but most of the reports I read seem to support that the Helmer is the best thawer currently available. Anyone else have experience with the Sahara or some other dry thawer approved for use in the U.S.?

We use Igloo MaxCold Playmate coolers (kind of greyish blue color) straight off the shelf of the local retailer. The MaxCold variety have additional insulation in the lids so they maintain temperature for much, much longer than the regular red or royal blue models of the same shape and size. We use frozen blue "ice blocks" with refrigerated gel pack on top and bottom of units to keep them from keeping too cold. We have validated our coolers to maintain 1-6C for more than 8 hours. FYI: the storage vs. transport issue is courtesy of the FDA

We still use a lot of random donor platelets, and we perform Verax PGD testing on all of those on the day of issue. We have a small apheresis collection program and send samples to our blood center for eBDS testing at 24 hours but have started also testing them with the PGD on day of issue to start the process of validating that method for use with our apheresis platelets. Unfortunately, our collection rate is so low that it will take a very long time until we have much data regarding the apheresis products on day of issue. Wish that the PGD testing was faster but it is quite simple.

this is the process that we are discussing implementing -- I would love to get more details from you regarding how you handle the tube and label issue. will you be at AABB next week?

I work in a lab that has been using bromelin to treat cells for cold autoadsoprtions for years.....but we have no references listed with the procedure and I can't find documentation of what was done to validate the process. Is anybody else using bromelin for this? If so, do you have any references for it? The package insert for Immucor Gammazyme-B makes no mention of its use for this purpose.