Directed Donor Pre-Typing

[n.peters]

I was curious what others are doing when it comes to directed donors and ABO/Rh compatibility with recipient.

Do you do a pre-type on the donor and/or recipient prior to collection to see if they are compatible?

or

Do you just collect the donor and state that they may or may not be available due to ABO/Rh compatibility and the let the transfusion facility determine that?

Thanks!

[skopti]

We do not collect Directed donors at our facility but we refer them to the American Red Cross. If a patient requests directed donors, we ABO/Rh type the potential donors and perform an ABO/Rh and Antibody screen on the recipient. If donors and recipient are ABO/Rh comaptible we then have the comaptible donors go to the ARC for donation.

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

We no longer have directed donors in the UK, except in exceptional circumstances, such as when only a sibling has blood antigen negative for a clinically significant antigen found in the patient, but we would never bleed the donor of a unit until we know that their red cells are compatible with the recipient. In other words, we would take a sample from the directed donor, ABO and Rh type them and then go on to perform a preliminary cross-match before the unit is taken (and then do another cross-match when the unit may actually be required, e.g. just prior to surgery).

[Bill]

We refer directed donor to collection facility--we will accept it only if donor is same group and compatible Rh.

[heathervaught]

We collect Directed donors at our facility (although it is becoming less common). We don't do any pre-screening unless the prospective donor has donated at our facility in the past and already has a blood type in our records. Otherwise, we accept all prospective directed donors then release the appropriate number of compatible components that fill the request. All communication about acceptable units and blood types is relayed to the ordering physician (i.e. we collected 3 donors but one was a type A and you requested O). Any incompatible ABOs (and compatible units in excess of the request) are released into our general inventory.

[AMcCord]

We do the same as Bill. We do not cross Directed donors over into regular inventory.

[Deb]

We do the same thing as Heathervaught -- although the number of directed units requested is getting very small....

"We don't do any pre-screening unless the prospective donor has donated at our facility in the past and already has a blood type in our records. Otherwise, we accept all prospective directed donors then release the appropriate number of compatible components that fill the request. All communication about acceptable units and blood types is relayed to the ordering physician (i.e. we collected 3 donors but one was a type A and you requested O). Any incompatible ABOs (and compatible units in excess of the request) are released into our general inventory."