I am trying to create the conditions by which we can perform our Cord Blood Testing via automation.  As we all know, cord blood specimens are not great.  We were using a sterile screw top tube that they had used years ago, but in my efforts to see if we could automate it, we were able to locate sterile pink EDTA tubes for them to collect in.  However, still getting them with clots.  They found that if they filled them only 1/2 full (so quicker to get cap back on), the clotting was not as bad or frequent....but still no consistency.  Our automation will run testing on Cord Specimens (Erytra), but we will not start it until when and if we can get them non-clotted (or at least where we can use an applicator stick and maybe just be taking out 1 small clot).

Anyone out there successfully performing cord blood testing via automation?  I can't imagine any analyzer would accept a clotted specimen so if you are, please share with me what your success is in getting non-clotted cord specimens.

Thanks,

Brenda Hutson, MT (ASCP)SBB

We do. We also have Erytra and wadiana. 

Our cord blood samples are collected in either purple or pink edta tubes. All specimens get spun when received. If a cord sample needs to have testing performed, any clots are removed with applicator sticks and respun prior to testing. 

Our cord blood samples are collected in red tops. They arrive in BBK usually with one giant clot.  We remove the clot, centrifuge and test on ProVue.  We stopped using EDTA samples because they usually had numerous small clots that were very time consuming to remove.

Ah, so give up trying to "receive" non-clotted specimens.....just have to create them on our own.  Either of you have issues because not all clots were removed sufficiently?

Thanks,

Brenda

We test our cord bloods on the Echo by removing an aliquot of the cells from the EDTA tube.  We can usually get clot-free cells this way.  Any small clots are removed prior to analyzing.

1 hour ago, Brenda Hutson said:

Ah, so give up trying to "receive" non-clotted specimens.....just have to create them on our own.  Either of you have issues because not all clots were removed sufficiently?

Thanks,

Brenda

Rarely

12 hours ago, Dansket said:

Rarely

Same here. 

We are running cord blood samples on an Echo for type, DAT and weak D. At first we were running cells collected from a red top tube - usually plenty of fall out cells in the bottom, but we had to wait for them to clot. I finally convinced delivery to collect in EDTA tubes using the sterile tube kit mentioned above. We very carefully remove any and all clots with applicator sticks and centrifuge. Working very well.

No problems so far.

We run cord blood samples collected in a purple top EDTA on the TANGO. Check for and remove any clots with applicator sticks and centrifuge for 5 minutes before testing. Has been working fine.

We remove an aliquot from the primary container and rim the sample for clots prior to centrifugation. We use the Ortho Vision analyzers. Prior to that we used the ProVue.

We also put our cord bloods on the Tango after removing clots.  Works great.

We get our cords collected in a sterile Screw top tube, no anticoagulant.  We've been testing on our analyzer for years now, 1st ProVue and now Vision.  For some reason, after these clot and retract there is very abundant serum with lots of free RBC's.  We just pull a small aliquot of serum and RBC's off, ream for clots (which are rare using this method) and then centrifuge.

On ‎3‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 1:27 PM, Sandy L said:

We get our cords collected in a sterile Screw top tube, no anticoagulant.  We've been testing on our analyzer for years now, 1st ProVue and now Vision.  For some reason, after these clot and retract there is very abundant serum with lots of free RBC's.  We just pull a small aliquot of serum and RBC's off, ream for clots (which are rare using this method) and then centrifuge.

So are you placing that small amount of serum and RBCs, in a separate tube for testing?

Brenda

On ‎3‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 4:51 PM, Laurie Underwood said:

We run cord blood samples collected in a purple top EDTA on the TANGO. Check for and remove any clots with applicator sticks and centrifuge for 5 minutes before testing. Has been working fine.

Do you have a protocol for Cord testing on the Tango. How did you validate the DAT coombs?