We have been using the Echo for two years and recently we have noticed that we are encountering a lot of equivocal reactions. This past week-end we ran ten consecutive T&S and we got 4 of them come out as "NO INT" and one false positive reaction. (negative panel and negative with tube testing Peg & Lis). Obviously this is not acceptable. My question is, "Is this unique to our instrument or are others experiencing the same problems.

Thanks for your input.

Tony

Hi Tony. Yes, we've been seeing similar trashy problems lately. Our Echo has been maintained properly, we've switched Screening Cell Strips, etc. I am anxious to get our next lot # of Indicator Cells in a couple days and see if that makes a difference.

Donna

Same for us. I was beginning to wonder if we had lines with fungus in them, in spite of proper decontamination. Have you reported the problem? Any solutions offered?

I think I'll give them a call Tuesday.

We use the Galileos and at times have experienced this. Did you contact Immucor to let them know of this issue? Contacting them can help them determine if it is an antibody strip issue, or perhaps it is due to expiring indicator cells. If you do contact immucor, they will want to have the lot numbers of everything and may even ask for a packet of strips to test. They should be able to help trouble shoot you through this...and if other places are having the same problem, it would be good for them to know.

3 yrs Echo user and love it...BUT when these happen in clusters, sometimes its the lot # of strips, which is hard to ascertain if you only have 1 lot# in stock. Also, I have had L&D patients and patients with septicemia give these reactions due to their condition. The septicemia patients reactions went away after their white count dropped. I run a ready ID just to make sure a weak Kell or E isn't playing chicken. If the panel is all neg I go with that and call the screen negative. Enter a comment in our computer for future screens to be looked at closer.

Immucor is having personnel turnover issues. The inventor of Capture and original management are all retired. The main production manager for red cells, who is responsible for dried RBC plates and Indicator Cells is retiring this month. The new replacement personnel are on a learning curve and new senior management has no experience with solid phase or serology. I am afraid that these issues may continue. Immucor is pretty good about reagent replacements, but I know my lab will be spending more time resolving these issues. I hope the new Immucor personnel come up to speed quickly.

What lot number of Ready Screen strips are you using? We had the same problem, did all the troubleshooting we could think of, and ended up solving the problem with a new lot of strips. Our defective lot was R162.

I believe we were using Ready Screen Lot # R149 when we were having an unusual number of this problem.

We were using R152 when our problems were happening. The indicator lot was 679. We are now using R153 with indicators 685 and so far, so good.

Immucor is having personnel turnover issues. . . . .

Good to know. Thanks.

We were seeing issues a while ago but it turned out to be the camara settings/calibration. I love the dial-in customer service, they can see all of the logs on your instrument.

That is also a concern. As the tungsten bulb deposits graphite on the inner glass surface with aging, the light emission changes and we start seeing more discrepant results. When the Immucor service person arrives, they turn the gain up on the lamp and we are OK for a while. We are getting used to dealing with this problem. As mentioned in the previous threads, there is also lot-to-lot variability in reagents and controls. The bulb adjustment and reagent variability are monitored by carefully looking at our NTD and Equiv. incidence. When we see adverse trends, we are on the phone to Immucor. What we are a little nervous about is the additive affect of the two problems.

It doesn't sound like it is worth it to me!

Our Echo just got it's PM yesterday. We've been getting quite a few NTD and NO INTRP results within the last 3-4 weeks and our lamp was tweaked about 8 weeks ago. I discussed it with our service tech. He adjusted the Y-belt on the robot arm which will make the shake a little less vigorous. He told me that for some reason that belt tightens up with age and that loosening the tension on it should help. I guess I'll know if that worked in a few weeks. Stay tuned!

The loosened belt and less vigorous shake should increase the sensitivity of the hemagglutination based reactions, especially the reverse ABO group. Our belt actually loosened with use and had to be tightened to completely resuspend negative reactions - we were getting too many false positives. Hope the loosened belt helps resolve some of your NTD's and NO INTERP's.

Dear Immucor automation users,

1. I am planning on acquiring the Neo, what is your opinion?
   
2. Bio-Rad has also presented a tender and we are currently using the maual BioRad, is it smart to move to solid phase?
   
3. And what is your current manual backup, solid phase or gel?
   

Thank you so much!!