Reliability of agglutination test to detect alloantibodies in patients with repeated blood transfusion

Abstract

Background: Blood transfusion is an integral part in the management of sickle cell disease patients. Allogeneic blood transfusion is a form of temporary transplantation. A recipient often mounts an immune response to the donor antigens resulting in various clinical consequences including delayed hemolytic transfusion reactions. Delayed reaction is often seen in individuals who have received repeated transfusion of ABO compatible blood that incompatible for other blood group antigens because of minor allelic difference stimulate the production of IgG antibodies. In the patients who have sickle cell disease the majority of tests may have low sensitivity and in turn may fail to show the autoantibodies. Objectives: This study has been conducted for detection of allo-antibodies in patient with sickle cell anaemia and hemophilia who received repeated blood transfusions using newly introduced test system; the DiaMed-Immuno-Diffusion microtyping system. Methods: Samples were collected randomly from 60 patients with repeated blood transfusions. Micro column gel test as well as agglutination method were performed for all samples. All the results were analyzed using Statistical Packages of Social Sciences (SPSS). Results and Discussion: This test provides clear and stable reactions that improve result interpretation. It proved to be more sensitive than the conventional tube agglutination technique as it captures agglutinate in a semi solid medium and on the other hand it has the capacity to detect unexpected antibodies. This in turn enhances visibility of agglutination compared to the traditional Tube techniques.