EXPERIENCE IN USING AUTOMATIC EQUIPMENT FOR BLOOD TRANSFUSION TESTING, “ID-GELSTATION (Dia Med)”: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF AUTOVUE SYSTEM AND STANDARD TUBE TEST

We compared the ID-GelStation (GS) with Auto Vue system (AV) equipment and standard tube test (TT) with regard to ABO and Rh blood typing and red cell antibody screening in 190 samples, 59 antibody-positive sera and 71 antibodies. GS showed an equal reaction to TT and AV in ABO cell typing and Rh typing. In ABO reverse typing, GS tended to show s stronger reaction than AV but a weaker reaction than TT, with which 9 of 109 samples needed to retested. In red cell antibody screening for 71 antibodies, the papain two-stage technique of GS apparently showed stronger reaction than the bromeline one-stage technique, especially for anti-Rh antibody. Further, GS detected antibodies such as anti-Fy, anti-Jk and anti-Jr which were detectable in antiglobulin testing. GS was more sensitive for anti-Rh antibody than AV in antiglobulin testing, the most important in the present blood transfusion tests. However, GS was less sensitive than the polyethylene glycol antiglobulin test (PEG-IgG) of TT. Only 4 of 10 anti-Fy and anti-Jk could be detected, suggesting that GS and AV, in which a low ionic strength solution (LISS) is used, have lower ability to detect low titer antibodies than PEG-IgG. Use of the more sensitive PEG-IgG may be for the detection of some low titer antibodies.