HAEMATOLOGY - BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS Flashcards
What are the 4 blood transfusion services in the UK?
NHS blood and transplant for England
• The Scottish national blood transfusion service
• The welsh blood service
• The Northern Ireland blood transfusion service
What are warm and cold antibodies?
Some antibodies react with red cells around normal body temperature (warm antibodies). Others are only active at lower temperatures (cold antibodies) and do not usually cause clinical problems although they may be picked up on laboratory testing.
What class of immunoglobulins are anti-A and anti-B antibodies?
Mainly IgM -
What class of immunoglobulins are Rh antigens?
IgG
What is a direct anti globulin test also known as?
Coombs test
What are the 2 different types of Coombs tests and what are the differences?
Direct Coombs test - detects antibodies or complement on the surface of RBCs
Indirect Coombs test - detects antibodies in the serum.
What are the uses for direct Coombs test?
Autoimmune haemolysis
Drug induce haemolysis
Alloimmune haemolysis (haemolytic disease of the newborn or alloimmune haemolytic transfusion reaction)
What are the uses for indirect Coombs test?
Pre transfusion testing e.g. blood types and cross matching
Prenatal antibody screen
Whats a positive Coombs test?
Visible agglutination
which immunoglobulin crosses the placenta
IgG
Whats the rarest blood type?
AB-
Whats the most common blood type?
O+ (37% of population)
Whats the difference between homologous and autologous transfusions?
Autologous blood transfusion is the collection and re-infusion of the patient’s own blood or blood components. Homologous, or more correctly allogenic, blood transfusions involves someone collecting and infusing the blood of a compatible donor into him/herself.
Whats the universal donor blood type?
O negative
Whats blood mixed with once collected to prevent it from coagulating?
Sodium citrate
Citrate reduces the ionized calcium levels in the blood, which prevents the blood from clotting.
Whats the universal recipient?
AB
Which blood can people with Rh+ blood have?
Rh+ or Rh- blood as they don’t have antibodies against the Rh glycoprotein
What happens if a Rh- person receives Rh+ blood?
They could develop a haemolytic transfusion reaction as they have anti-Rh antibodies so can only recieve Rh- blood
How is blood typing tested?
A blood sample is mixed with anti-A/antiB antibodies
If an agglutination reaction occurs when mixing with anti-A antibodies but not when mixing with anti-B antibodies then they have type A blood (as they have A antigens on RBC surface)
What is cross matching?
When the recipients serum gets mixed with the donors blood to check for agglutination
If it des then it means the recipients blood contains antibodies against donors RBCs so cannot recieve it - this is important in case there are additional glycoproteins causing a reaction not identified by blood typing
Outline the epidemiology of rhesus positive and negative blood?
85% of the population have rhesus positive blood so can recieve any type of blood
15% are RhD negative so can only recieve RhD negative blood
What is ‘group and save’?
A quick check for blood group compatibility just looking at ABO - takes about 15 minutes
Whats the minimum age and weight for donating blood?
17
50kg
How often can you donate blood?
The normal interval between whole blood donations is 16 weeks but no more than 3 donations a year are collected from female donors because of a more precarious iron status
What infectious agents are screened for when donating blood?
hepatitis B
hepatitis C
hepatitis E
HIV
treponemal infections (like syphilis)
Donations from new donors and those used for non-leucodepleted components are tested for human T cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV).
What volume is a whole blood donation?
470ml
Why are most WBC removed from blood donations?
To reduce the incidence of febrile transfusion reactions, alloimmunisation to white cells and to reduce the risk of vCJD