Hello.  Our institution wants to start stocking low titer group O whole blood. My questions are as follows:

1) What kind of compatibility testing is required.  Can an electronic crossmatch be performed? SafeTrace TX will perform ELXM with an "O" to an "A" patient and call it incompatible, whereas  when we did an immediate spin crossmatch, we determined it to be compatible.

2) What is your titer cutoff for these low titer whole bloods?

Thank you!

10 hours ago, longhorn2891 said:

  Our institution wants to start stocking low titer group O whole blood.

I'm curious and have been out of the loop for a while so I would like to know who and why.

On 11/10/2019 at 8:18 PM, longhorn2891 said:

Hello.  Our institution wants to start stocking low titer group O whole blood. My questions are as follows:

1) What kind of compatibility testing is required.  Can an electronic crossmatch be performed? SafeTrace TX will perform ELXM with an "O" to an "A" patient and call it incompatible, whereas  when we did an immediate spin crossmatch, we determined it to be compatible.

2) What is your titer cutoff for these low titer whole bloods?

Thank you!

I think some have created a new product class in STTx for low titer O Whole Blood so they can use different compatibility rules than are built for WB that may have all ABO antibodies in high titer.

On 11/11/2019 at 6:39 AM, John C. Staley said:

I'm curious and have been out of the loop for a while so I would like to know who and why.

Oh, John, you are missing all the fun!  Everyone wants to give blood pre-hospital now--on air and even ground ambulances.  They prefer WB because it is easier to transfuse, has some platelet activity (yes, cold platelets work for trauma) for the first couple of weeks. and doesn't dilute the coag factors.  It started with the military and then got going in Texas.  With the O blood shortage, we can't give it to ground ambulances who would seldom use it, but we might be talked into providing liquid plasma (group A, never frozen, good for 26 days).  The link below may be educational for you.  Not everyone agrees with the research, but it is increasing everywhere.

STRAC Blood

On 11/10/2019 at 10:18 PM, longhorn2891 said:

Hello.  Our institution wants to start stocking low titer group O whole blood. My questions are as follows:

1) What kind of compatibility testing is required.  Can an electronic crossmatch be performed? SafeTrace TX will perform ELXM with an "O" to an "A" patient and call it incompatible, whereas  when we did an immediate spin crossmatch, we determined it to be compatible.

2) What is your titer cutoff for these low titer whole bloods?

Thank you!

Bring back minor crossmatches?

Titer cut offs are usually between 50 and 256.  We would need to use whatever cut off our supplier chose which I think is 200 for ARC.

We use ALOT of WB (we have WB in 2 ED refrigerators for their use and have a pre-hospital blood program with 4 air care helicopters and in multiple county EMS units)

our computer will allow for EXM if patient is admitted and we receive 2 samples.  otherwise we ISXM.