most reference lab's final word is PEG. Do a PEG A/S, panel if it makes you more comfortable and full PEG XM.

I was so happy to see the response regarding the problems encountered with "Gel technique"......why you know ? All these years, I got the impression that everybody is very very happy with this "gel technique" (EXCEPT ME ) !...... When it was introduced in our country some 10-12 years back, lots of discussions were happening about their "positive aspects". There were presentations about the incidence of "false negatives" in "tube technique". But nobody had thought about the "false positives" in "Gel technique". I am at last happy that , there are at least few more in this world who are getting problems with "gel" like me.......Very much informative this thread was... Thanks to the person who had brought up this topic ! and of course, thanks to the other colleagues too !

best wishes to all !

In reference to drsbright's reply, my blood bank just recently adopted going back to tube testing until all these Gel problems have been resolved.

I have been telling my colleagues that I'd much rather work up false-positives than false-negatives. I feel that, although the reference lab we contract with uses tube method as their primary technique, our going back to tube method doesn't exactly mean diddly because reference lab uses different types of reagents than we do.

Another reason why I say that is because -- from what I've been reading in this thread, PEG seems to be more reproducible with Gel technology than LISS/Enhancement solutions. If I understand this correctly, a 2+ gel reaction would be missed if we use LISS/Enhancement, which we do. And this would then explain why repeating all positive gel screens by tube method doesn't really make any sense.

So, until Ortho sends a representative to help us understand why we have these weird reactions, our blood bank will be doing tube type, and eventually, we will run out of tech power and 3% screening cells/panels in a week. I mean, they won't even suggest looking into techniques or something. I haven't been working long, but there's gotta be a better way than just dropping your primary system and switching back to tube because "reference lab does it"

Thanks for all your ideas!

We use Panel C as well, saved ourselves alot of grief. With the reformulated cells that were introduced last year we have picked up many E, K and Jka that would have been missed in tube. With more generalists rotating through the blood bank we need that sensitive system.

We generally go to a PEG panel which includes an immediate spin (before adding PEG of course). If the PEG panel is negative and the MTS result doesn't make any sense I wouldn't have any problem defaulting to the PEG results.