EGA treatment

[DCeDCe]

Hi All,

I have questions for all Blood Bankers who have or currently perform EGA red cell treatment. My Blood Bank is currently attempting to validate this testing, and I am wondering if there is any special kind of technique involved in using EGA? We seem to be having difficulty in removing the IgG from the sensitized cells, and I am wondering if it is due to technique. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

What does EGA mean please?

[Ensis01]

On ‎5‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 12:43 PM, Malcolm Needs said:

What does EGA mean please?

EDTA Gyycine-Acid kit. Often used in the USA instead of Gamma-Quin to dissociate IgG from red cells. It has the advantage that it is faster than Gamma-Quin but the disadvantage that it inactivates the antigens from the Kell system.

DCeDCe: my advise is to follow the insert very closely i.e. to the second. If the DAT is strong you may need to do the process twice (max). Once treated the cells are often fragile and so test with little delay. If the complement DAT is also positive a higher degree of hemolysis and cell fragility occurs and so reducing the incubation time is often needed. I suggest beginning by EGA treating out of date screening cells that are K pos and k pos then test with anti-K and anti-k to see if the antigens have dissociated. Then move on to DAT positive cells with IgG only.

Hope this helps.

[DCeDCe]

Hi Ensis01,

Do you know if testing the treated cells in the MTS IgG cards (for the DAT and phenotyping) can affect the results in any way? 

[Ensis01]

1 hour ago, DCeDCe said:

Hi Ensis01,

Do you know if testing the treated cells in the MTS IgG cards (for the DAT and phenotyping) can affect the results in any way? 

I do not know as we always phenotype using tube. You may however have issues as the IgG DAT will be more sensitive in Gel, and the MTS diluent 2 may affect the fragility of the cells (or not).