I'm looking to see if anybody knows any suppliers of glass tiles/ceramic tiles for blood grouping that can be washed and reused. We have some old glass tiles that the partitioning has fallen apart so that the reaction mixtures in different wells combine and therefore have to replace them. While I can find disposable plastic tiles easily enough, I'm really looking to replace with preferably glass tiles but ceramic tiles will also be good.

Unless you are working in a country where resources are extremely difficult to come by and/or you don't always have an electricity supply, then why are you using technology that went out of date before most of the people who read this site were even born?

Careful Anna; I've used it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Careful Anna; I've used it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Me too.  Used it to recheck donor units. 

I remember using them to recheck patients prior to transfusion.

I used to use glass slides (like the ones used for hematology slides) with a light box in the 1960's. We used a wax marker to make the lines. Do they still made wax markers, the ones where you had unwrap?? I haven"t seen one in years. We also used them to mark tubes.

When I was deployed to Iraq we had a handcrank centrifuge.

Oh dear!  I remember those too!

Blood_Banker, I too have used glass slides to do blood types (rural hosptial, late 1970s) but if you are in the US you may be subject to an OSHA inspection and glass slides most certainly present a sharps hazard to staff in your blood bank.  

 

If possible, please investigate the possibility of moving your testing to glass or plastic tubes. And by all means do not rewash these tubes, they are meant to be disposable.   

 

tricore, I've also used the "china markers" on tubes and slides.  They came in 2 colors; orange and black.  I preferred the black  ,  Haven't seen them in the lab in YEARS.................... 

 

What few tubes we do mark these days use those new fangled Sharpie markers  (not a product endorsement, I use this term generically).  

To all those who remember them - well, me too.  I am glad to see you all used the past tense. I am also very glad that I too can use the past tense - and hope it never has to turn into the present tense again!! I am also aware that in some very poor countries this is all they can do as they don't have a choice. 

Never used a hand-cranked centrifuge though - but did use a battery operated one!

I just found a red Phano brand china marker in my desk drawer where it has slumbered undisturbed for decades. Can't remember the last time I used it but it had to have been before Prometheus brought the sharpie to mankind. I looked online, Office Depot and Amazon have them and I'm sure others.

I agree with the above: go tube and dispose unless your resources are totally limited.

And do you remember Folin-Wu tubes, colloidal golds, protein-free filtrates, changing dialyzer membranes on 2 channel autoanalyzers, leukocyte reduced cells by inverted centrifugation, the fall of Rome, the discovery of fire and the other items that may mark us as ancient and should be retired like that guy's cell washer in another thread?

Try this: http://www.stradis-med.de/pages_e/flowfix10.html

In the 1990s, when I joined a small town Blood Bank, they were using ceramic tiles for crossmatching. I had never seen anything like that before and was amazed & shocked that they would transfuse blood based on this mixing procedure (crossmatch according to them). It took me a couple of weeks to shift them to tube technique (sorta ISXM) and another 2 weeks to get AHG. What days!!!!!!!!!

 

The Blood Bank was a part of Path Dept. and had a 4-tube basic centrifuge for spinning samples, but the best part was that whenever one of lab's centrifuge would conk off, they would take this centrifuge away for those couple of days. Previously how they managed I don't know, but when it happened after I joined, I spoke to Pathologist and told her we needed that centrifuge. She said we will send you a standby centrifuge. Lo & behold, in a few minutes she sent us a hand cranking centrifuge 2-tube and to be fixed on the table, and working on muscle power. :lol: Had or have never seen such a contraption ever again, should be in museum.

How many of you have ever used the capillary indirect antiglobuin technique?

I have done typings in capillary tubes but just to mess around and try the technique. Do you do that the same way, like sucking up a portion of washed cells, then a portion of antiglobulin, then let the cells fall through the antiserum and bead up?

Edited June 26, 201411 yr by Dr. Pepper

How many of you have ever used the capillary indirect antiglobuin technique?

I still have a half pound of Chown tubes and a procedure.  It is always interesting to show it to students.  We used to use them to screen donors for "e" ag . . . could screen a lot with only a small amount of antisera.  Also used them to do panels on babies. 

 

And yes - that is the technique.  I never tried it with anything but the chown tubes - I was told the internal diameter (0.4mm) was essential to the technique.

Edited June 26, 201411 yr by David Saikin

Yes Phil, you are correct in your technique and yes David, you are correct about the diameter.

Capillary IAT.doc.

 

Voila!

I'm sure glad I'm not as old as you guys! 

I'm sure glad I'm not as old as you guys! 

Hey John - aren't you the retired one . . . you must just be the lucky one . . .

But I do remember the autoanalyzers and hot oil baths etc

Hmmmmmmm, never took a hot oil bath in the lab, as far as I remember!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How about taking an unclotted Lee White to coffee break and going through the cafeteria line with the little plastic holder with the 3 tubes and the stopwatch on your tray? Have we lost the young'uns yet?

Hey John - aren't you the retired one . . . you must just be the lucky one . . .

But I do remember the autoanalyzers and hot oil baths etc

David, that's SEMI-retired.  Still working 40+ but the stress levels are pretty much nonexistant.  I do miss the blood bank, that's probably why I continue to lurk around here. 

Lurk as long as you want John.  Your posts are always appreciated and pithy.

 

By the way, I've had a couple of "days from Hell" at work, so I haven't had time to contact my friend about the HDFN, tube and gel question, but I haven't forgotten!

How about taking an unclotted Lee White to coffee break and going through the cafeteria line with the little plastic holder with the 3 tubes and the stopwatch on your tray? Have we lost the young'uns yet?

completely......?????????