I'd appreciate any information anyone has regarding this antibody. We have an OB patient due in a couple months that has been determined to have an Anti-U. If she needs a transfusion, we are planning on giving Rh and K phenotype specific, but is there anything else that may help prevent complications/reaction? Blood warmer? Thank you!

This antibody is actually pretty common where I work. It is especially troubling in pregnancy where it can cause severe HDN. If a patient has anti-U the titer should be closly monitered in pregnancy. As for transfusion protocols ours is pretty simple, we give phenotype specific AHG XM.

Thank you! With >99% of the population having the U antigen, how do you get AHG compatible? Or do you use incompatible? Again, thanks!

The American Red Cross supplies our blood. They can do a nationwide search for U-negative units, or possible de-glyc frozen ones. U is very significant and I would not recomend transfusing U-positive blood to a patient with anti-U unless the situation was already life threatening.

Also, it helps that our donor base is approx. 40-60% African American, making it slightly easier to find U-negative units.

Thank you! With >99% of the population having the U antigen, how do you get AHG compatible? Or do you use incompatible? Again, thanks!

Incompatible is out of the question. You can call for family members, perform selective phenotypes and irradiate the units. I am not 100% safe with irradiation but it would be better than incompatible units. The best of course is as mjshepherd said: The American Red Cross or if you have a donor data-base (registry) you can call on.

If you plan to write an article, go around your state and perform extensive phenotypes, and keep the data and demographics. It is a bit hard but so helpful when you suddenly need a specific blood type.

Liz

We have a patient with Anti-U. We get our blood from Red Cross and they have done a nationwide search and found U negative units when needed. It may take a few days, but they have always come through! Since this can cause HDN we always try to obtain U negative blood for transfusion. The percentages are less than 1% of the population, but we are fortunate to have a couple of U negative donors in our area.

good luck,

John

We have had a couple of patients with anti-U and we had to get our blood from Red Cross also. One patient was an OB patient and the other patient was not an OB. The units cross-matched compatible. The units need to be U negative, (which is S and s negative).