Hi All,

We are about to move from using Bio-Rad IH-1000 to Immunocor NEO in our blood bank department. As most of you are already aware, the IH-1000 uses column agglutination technology (CAT), whereas the NEO uses Solid Phase Red Cell Adherence (SPRCA) assay. SPRCA is known to be more sensitive, which is great when picking up on elusive antibodies belonging to Kidd blood group system (I think ). My concern is about the techniques which employ the use of indicator cells that are coated with anti-IgG. It will only pick up on IgG antibodies and none of the IgM antibodies. How significant is this? Is there any way of picking up IgM antibodies using such technique? Or should we not worry since IgM antibody does not usually reaction at 37C?

Regards,

Jermin

On the plus side, you won't see pesky anti-M or the anti-E that is IgM only. After 8+ years, I haven't seen anything to indicate that we've missed a clinically significant alloantibody because it was IgM only. I know that people worry about missing anti-Jka and anti-Jkb, but our experience is that Capture gives us solid reactions for those.

5 minutes ago, AMcCord said:

On the plus side, you won't see pesky anti-M or the anti-E that is IgM only. After 8+ years, I haven't seen anything to indicate that we've missed a clinically significant alloantibody because it was IgM only. I know that people worry about missing anti-Jka and anti-Jkb, but our experience is that Capture gives us solid reactions for those.

It wouldn't be missing those specificities that would worry me so much as missing an anti-Vel.  Such antibodies are extremely rare.  Such antibodies are also extremely clinically significant.

1 hour ago, Malcolm Needs said:

It wouldn't be missing those specificities that would worry me so much as missing an anti-Vel.  Such antibodies are extremely rare.  Such antibodies are also extremely clinically significant.

Would your immediate spin compatibility test detect the anti-Vel in all cases (assuming you did a serologic crossmatch)?

1 hour ago, AMcCord said:

Would your immediate spin compatibility test detect the anti-Vel in all cases (assuming you did a serologic crossmatch)?

Indeed not, but it would be detected in many cases.