Question

A patient was transfused in the emergency room with 14 units of O negative red cells over a period of 6 hours. The acute bleeding was stopped and the patient was transferred to ICU for continued care. Type and screen on the original sample was O positive with a negative antibody screen at all phases of testing. An H&H from the ICU was 8 g/dl hgb & 24.7 hct. The physician ordered an additional 4 units of packed red cells.

QUESTIONS:

What sample should be used for crossmatching the additional units?

What blood type should the patient receive? Why?

Answer 1

Pretransfusion testing is a patient requires the blood transfusion that involves the cross mating of the selected donor blood of appropriate ABO and RhD type. If there is no observable reaction in the compatibility tests between the blood of the donor and the blood of the patient, then the donor blood selected is considered compatible. It is clear that when transfused, the blood will survive normally in the recipient. The very essential step is the identification of the patient and selecting blood of the correct ABO group for the patient. If cross mating is not carried out correctly, can lead to the wrong blood being transfused into the patient, with possibly disastrous consequences, though it is a very simple process. And this happens because of patient misidentification and/or the switching of patient samples, either in the hospital or in the crossmatching laboratory/blood bank.

The process of cross-matching it involves the donor blood or organ, and the technician, they will mix a sample of your blood with a sample of the donor material. It also includes antibody screening for unexpected red blood cell antibodies that could cause problems in the recipient. They will wait and check the reaction of this process. It performed to determine if a particular unit of blood can be transfused safely into a certain patient.

When a patient receives blood type is called red cell compatibility.  In these red cells, components are identical for the ABO group and RhD type as the recipient should be used for transfusion. As shown in the table below, O Rh-negative is the universal red cell donor blood that can be given to all patients.

People with Rh-negative blood should only get Rh-negative red blood cells because an Rh-positive blood transfusion can cause a person with Rh-negative blood to make antibodies against the Rh factor, causing a transfusion reaction.