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Have worked with Korchek - they do a good job. I have also heard good things about S&P.

Give BC Solutions/RF Nozick a call. www.bcsolutionsrfn.com They did a great job.

Besides the actual type and screen, our regular type and screen "G" test battery includes the following nonreportable tests: 1. ABOV - has the ABO been verified by a second typing? (result: yes or no) 2. CPR - check of previous results (result: previous results checked) In addition to the above, our preop type and screen "G" test battery has: 1. PTX - pregnant or transfused in last 3 months (result: yes, no, uncertain) 2. DOS - date of surgery (result free texted).

Hey all Echo users, we seem to be experiencing an increase in the number of patients who are backtyping very weakly, 99% of the time on the B which drives us to double check the type manually. These are not elderly (although our new young 23 ish tech though that the current patient at 52 was elderly..... ) or immunocompromised patients to the best of our knowledge. Daily QC is fine. Anyone else seeing this?

If your auto-antibody is that weak (weak results only with red cells not expressing the antigen against which the antibody is directed), then I would think that the titre that you get with red cells that do express the antigen against which the antibody is directed would be fairly accurate, with not much in the way of boosting by the auto-antibody. The problem with performing an alloadsorption first, to get rid of the autoantibody (and, because the patient is pregnant, an autoadsorption is out of the question), prior to performing the titre, is that, however careful you are getting the alloadsorption red cells as packed as possible, you will get some dilution due to the medium in which the alloadsorption red cells are suspended. So, to a certain extent, you pays your money and you takes your choice as to whether you want a very slight boost to the titre by ignoring the very weak auto-antibody, or you want a very slight dilution after alloadsorption, bringing down the titre very slightly.

Tightening or loosening the belt on the strip carrier can optimize the strength of the reverse cells. On the Echo I have found the strengths to normally be at least 1 grade less than tube strength. With regards to Gel vs Echo, I have found approx equal number of clinically signficant antibodies on either method that were not found on the other method (We use both Gel and solid phase methods)