Hello,

We are in the process of validating our Ortho Visions and have run a couple of antibody titers in parallel with tube testing (saline, 37 C incubation, IgG).  We understand that gel is more sensitive, but today's testing on a patient with little c was an 8 fold difference.  Does anyone have any experience with antibody titers on the Vision.  Thank you for your time.

Julie Anderson

I tried validating antibody titers when we first got our Visions. I had the same issue as you due to the sensitivity of the gel. I listened to a webinar on the subject once and those who have successfully done it recommend contacting the clinicians to inform them of this significant change in test method. This would come from your blood bank medical director and he or she would have to work closely with the OB/GYNs. Therefore, I decided to continue doing titers by tube method. Good luck if you do decide to pursue this further.

I can just imagine the conversations you may have if a patient comes to you after being titered at a different hospital and an 8 fold increase is the result 

CAP offers a program called ABT ( antibody Titer) if you subscribe you can see how your Laboratory performs compared to others and get a report showing the different sensitivities in Gel Versus tube etc.

Thank you all for your input.  We do get the ABT survey from CAP.  I think it will be helpful to see results of titer surveys on the Vision vs tube methodology Titers will not be on our Vision test menu for quite awhile! 

Julie

I think they made it so  you can run fewer than 11 or 12 dilutions on the Vision now but initially, I didn't want to use up that many reagent cells for every titer because most are less than 8.  We would have to notify a perinatologist in another city who consults on all of our antibody patients so we have not switched to gel.  Maybe someday.  Tube titrations are time-consuming and require technical skills that are getting weaker as fewer of our people have spent years doing tube testing.

I know this is a bit late but I have recently validated titer on the Vision and found it to have at most only a 1 titre dilution difference to Bio-Rad gel cards. Some higher some lower but most agreed.  I was pleased with the outcome, just a little disappointing that the only result you get is "Done" and it doesn't give an interpretation hence manual interpretation and entry is required.