Hi Fellow Blood Bankers,

I just purchased a Heittech EBA 21 centrifuge and need to calibrate. I have looked at the calibration procedure of the AABB Technical Manual, 16 edition, and I am not sure how to calculate a dilution to give a 1+ reaction. Does anyone have a procedure they can share?

Thanks,

Judith

I don't have a "procedure". We just make a dilution, then do the test. If the reaction is too strong, we dilute it some more & recheck (or add more antibody if it's too weak, etc.) and just repeat the adjusting and testing until we are satisfied with a 1+ reaction.

Donna

Thanks, Donna.

Judith

Here is the procedure and form we use for the calibration of all of our centrifuges (Hettich EBA 21 and Sorvall Cellwasher 2). This works well for us, hope you find it useful.

Terri

TS 002404 Calibration of Serologic Centrifuges.doc

TS 009002 Serologic Centrifuge Calibration Worksheet.doc

Thanks Terri,

Procedure and form looks great.

Judith

I agree..... Nice procedure & form. Thanks!

Donna

Thanks for those. I love looking at all the different procedures and forms and pulling out what I want for my own procedures.

I've only been a BB section head now for 8 months so some of this stuff is new to me. I was going over the procedure for Calibrating our centrifuges and was wondering if 22% Albumin had to be used for this procedure? Would it be okay to use LISS?

 

Thanks,

 Whitney

Hi Fellow Blood Bankers,

I just purchased a Heittech EBA 21 centrifuge and need to calibrate. I have looked at the calibration procedure of the AABB Technical Manual, 16 edition, and I am not sure how to calculate a dilution to give a 1+ reaction. Does anyone have a procedure they can share?

Thanks,

Judith

In the days before monoclonal anti-A and -B, we would dilute one of these reagents until we got a 1+, but found that with monoclonal antisera we REALLY had to dilute.  Now we select a patient who is group A and run a titer against B reverse grouping cells.  We select a dilution that gives 1+ reactions and then prepare a larger volume of that dilution.  Of course using patient plasma, each patient will have a different titer, but usually we are not having to titer too far.

procedure and form looks great exactly what I was looking for Thanks

Is your EBA21 a new centrifuge purchase? We have 3 in our Blood Bank and I wanted to purchase another one. When I called for a quote they said they discontinued making them and gave me a model # that took its place.

I am drafting a new SOP for functional calibration of serologic centrifuges and have the following questions.

1. Prior to determining the optimal time for centrifugation, we need to find the optima dilution of the antisera. We will use the the centrifuge to be calibrated to determine the optimal dilution with its current set up of  the rpm and centrifugation time, e.g., the dilution that gives 1+ reaction at 3400 rpm for 15 seconds. Then, with this optimal dilution, we will check tubes after centrifugation at different time intervals (e.g., 15, 20, 30 and 45 seconds). My question is that since we already used the 15 seconds as the centrifugation time to get the 1+ reaction in the first step, will the optimal centrifugation time be 15 seconds, which is kind of predetermined in the first step?
2. In many reagent inserts, they already indicate the suggested centrifugation (e.g., approximately 15-30 seconds at 3400 9rpm (900-1000 rcf)). If the time and rpm of the centrifuges we use are already calibrated with a standard timer and tachometer regularly, what's the reason for doing the functional calibration?

 

we titer the antisera to be used then make a batch at the dilution that gives us 1-2+.  we use this for our daily QC as well.