Hi, Just wondering, how do the rest of you handle anti-Lua? Our reference lab says it is clinically insignificant and shouldn't be worried about seeing as no typing sera is available. The scenario is this: 16 year old, sickler, on chronic transfusion therapy. We have had hime for 9 years, he has multiple antibodies and made Lua a year or so ago. It is no longer serologically demonstrable. We give him phenotype matched for everything else. Should I ignore the historical Lua or keep scrounging for blood which has at least been typed some time in the past for Lua? Thanks

Without a shadow of a doubt, I would urge you to ignore the anti-Lua.

Even if you could detect it, I would still give cross-match compatible (but "un-Lu(a) typed") blood, as you will find, in all the text books, that anti-Lua is clinically insignificant and has not been recorded as causing a haemolytic transfusion reaction. This is even true in the case of sickle cell patients who are more prone than most to go into a state of hyperhaemolysis, but they can (and do) do that even when there are no alloantibodies detected (ever).