We have been using Immucor Complement Control Cells for years and they have always worked, although they are weak reacting. Suddenly, the are not working. I put in a call to the company. Lot #34161. Is anyone else have problems with this lot?

We had the same problem with lot 34161 yesterday. One of my techs repeated her QC 6 times before she said something to me. Opened a new lot and everything was fine again. I will be reporting the problem today.

We have had this same problem last week and it was reported. But we have had this problem multiple times in the past. We usually don't have a second lot to try.

I havent had a problem with my complement control cells, but with my new lot of panocells, screen cell 1 has started giving me 1-2+ results with O patients. When we do the ID, nothing. I called, and since I had troubleshooted to the best of my ability (ran DAT on cells, ran straight in the gel, etc.), Immucor decided to send me a new lot of cells that should be arriving at any moment. Oh and by the way, repeating the cell in tubes yields a negative test, go figure.

Thanks. I haven't received an answer yet!

Magnum...what lot # are you having trouble with cell#1? We had the same problem with several patients yesterday using screening cell lot#34156 but it went away when we repeated with a new lot#. And yes, we have had trouble with the check cells. Immucor sent a letter about reports of weak check cell reactivity a few weeks ago. We have also had problems with weak reactions with anti-D dating back to April. We are in the process of switching our cells to BioRad and may make a total switch if these issues do not resolve.

We submitted our anti-D problem to immucor a while ago and here is some of what the reply letter stated...

Immucor has identified and implemented additional standards. The effectiveness of this action was evaluated by comparing lots 506081 (506080, 506082, 506091 – which also had complaints of weaker reactivity) against the new standard. The comparison demonstrated that Immucor would have detected the difference in performance during production had this standard been applied. Based on those findings, Anti-D (Monoclonal Blend) Gamma-clone currently being released will demonstrate better performance.

Hope this helps. Once we recieved the new lot, MUCH MUCH better. As for complement control cells, they have always been weak but I will have to double check to see how weak/problems.

As for complement control cells, they have always been weak but I will have to double check to see how weak/problems.

We have often had problems with too weak by naked eye. Is it our technique? How would one make it stronger? We never have 2 lots in date at the same time so using another lot is not available to us.

we also do not have a second lot, and my question is, if you dont have a second lot of contol cells how do you know if it the control cells or the anti-C3?

You don't. So we can't report C3 when it's not working. Need to send to ref lab.

I had the no reaction problems with exactly the same lot number while doing my proficiency. I called Immucor and they did confirmed they had had some reports of very weak or negative reactions. They overnight me a new lot of complement check cells. They work but still very weak reaction. I really had to incubate them for 10 minutes at room temperature after adding the check cells before centrifugation.

I will suggest we try that next time cc don't work. Thanks for the tip.

We had the same problem with the same lot of comp cont cells from Immucor. Immucor said they have gotten a lot of reports on that lot and the over-nighted us a replacement (new lot). If you have that lot, don't mess around. Just call and get your replacement.

Magnum...what lot # are you having trouble with cell#1? We had the same problem with several patients yesterday using screening cell lot#34156 but it went away when we repeated with a new lot#.

The bad lot number was 36181.

those cells have always been weakly reacting; they are 3-4+ in gel.

We have been using Immucor Complement Control Cells for years and they have always worked, although they are weak reacting. Suddenly, the are not working. I put in a call to the company. Lot #34161. Is anyone else have problems with this lot?

Something must have worked, I received an electronic acknowledgement this AM from Immucor, telling me to stop using this lot of Complement control cells, my regular standing order should be here already, or so it says.

IMMUCOR issued a technical alert regarding this lot number of complement control cells. They recommended discarding that lot.