Haemolytic Transfusion Reactions Flashcards
What are the two types of haemolytic transfusion reactions?
Acute
Delayed
What are acute haemolytic transfusion reactions?
IgM-mediated reactions
Reactions occur within 24hours
Never events - should never happen
Recipient already has antibodies present
Often associated with ABO mismatch
Severe reactions with significant mortality
Only occur due to malpractice - antibodies missed
What are delayed haemolytic transfusion reactions?
IgG mediated
Often Rh associated
Duffy and kidd also seen
Mild-severe reactions
Low mortality
What are the signs and symptoms of acute versus delayed haemmolytic transfusion reactions?
Acute: dramatic and severe, rapid onset
- fever, chills, flushing
- pain at site of infusion
- tachycardia, tachypnea, hypotension
- lower back pain - indicative of kidney damage
- haemoglobinemia, haemoglobinuria
Delayed: >24 hours post transfusion
- fever or temperature increase of >1 degrees
- with/without chills
- unexplainable decrease in Hb and Hct
- occassional mild jaundice
what are the major compplications of acute versus delayed haemmolytic transfusion reactions
Acute:
- DIC
- renal failure -> kidneys blocked
- irreversible shock
- death
Delayed:
- None -> less severe reaction
What are the causes of acute versus delayed haemmolytic transfusion reactions
Acute:
- complement activation
- ABO incompatibility
Delayed:
- anamnestic response to red cell antigen
- alloantibody missed or not demonstrated e.g. Kidd
Lab results of acute versus delayed haemmolytic transfusion reactions
Acute:
- DAT+
- increased plasma free haemoglobin
- increased serum bilirubin
- decreased haptoglobin and haemoglobinuria
Delayed:
-DAT positive
-Post transfusion antibody screen positive
- decreased Hb/Hct
Management of acute versus delayed haemmolytic transfusion reactions
Acute:
- treat hypotension and DIC
- maintain renal blood flow
- diuretics
Delayed:
- provide antigen-negative donor units
- no additional treatment needed
Prevention of acute versus delayed haemmolytic transfusion reactions
Acute:
- avoid errors of mislabellled samples and patient ID design system to decrease chaces of technical error
Dealyed:
- check patient records for old antibodies
Comment on the mortality of ABO incommpatiblity
Causes a couple of deats every year due to ABO mismatch across the world
Ireland has about 6/7 mismatches a year but never any deaths
List the three main non-haemolytic transfusion reactions
Non-haemolytic adverse events such as TRALI
Febrile non-haemolytic reactions
Allergic reactions
Why can haemolytic transfusion reactions be hard to diagnose?
Due to the broad clinical spectrum of symptoms
- some patients only become immunised with allo-antibodies
- sometimes there will be no symptoms but DAT+ etc
- Only symptom might be a faliure of Hb to rise following transfusion
- they can also be severe and life-threatening
Haemolytic transfusion reactions can be acute, delayed or mild give examples of causative antibodies in each
Acute = ABO
Mild = Rh
Delayed = complement binding Duffy and Kidd
What % of errors are detected in the lab?
80% of all clinical errors are detected in the lab
What are some of the main causes of HTRs
Nearly always human error e.g. misidentification of patient, wrong blood product or wrong blood sample
Some reactions are unavoidable e.g. delayed haemolytic reactions caused by a very weak antibody that could not be detected at cross-match/effurvescent antibodies e.g. anti-Jka
Laboratory errors seem to be less frequent but possible e.g. misinterpretation of an antibody panel leading to wrong unit being transfused - ruled out wrong antibody
Often several minor mistakes e.g. missing incorrectly labelled tue can lead to majojr damage
What does SHOT report on in terms of the causes of HTRs
Errors or human factors played a part in 77.6% of reports
What is an IBCT
Incorrect blood component transfused
What are some errors known to cause of HTRs
Collection of blood from the incorrect patient
Incorrect labelling of blood samples
Misidentification of sample at blood bank
Issuance of wrong unit from blood bank
Transfusion of blood to incorrect patient
Alloquoting a patient sample to improperly labelled test tube
- e.g. taking wrong section from wrong unit at crossmatch
What are some contributing factors that can cause HTRs
i.e. what might cause HTR but doesnt definitely
Insufficient segregation of units
Preprinted sample labels
Patients with similar or identical names
Sequential patient identifieers
Verbal and STAT orders
Manual issuance of blood
Simultaneous processing of specimens from multiple patients
Tested the correct sample but recorded results on the wrong patient record
Overriding computer error messages
Who are the main bodies on haemovigilance
SHOT
- annual SHOT report
National Haemovigillance Office
FDA
How many wbits were reported to NHO in the past few years
71 in 2020
56 in 2021
56 in 2022
78 in 2023
*
What are the main causes of wbits according to NHO 2022?
Detail not correctly ID at phlebotomy
Sample remotely labelled
Sample not labelled by person taking sample
Patient not correctly ID at admission
Deatil on sample not transcribed from ID band
NB: most errors are bedside errors
WBITS are a common cause of near miss events, what percentage do the make up?
60-70% of near miss events are wbits
80% of most errors reported to SHOT are caused by what?
Patient identification and sample labelling errors
When are errors detected
Nearly all errors are detected during testing or at authorisation of results i.e. in the lab
Responsiblity fals on the lab to detect these
Why are wbits not reported to haemovigilance
Haemovigilance arent concered with wbits
Theyre only concerned with components
hence not mandatory to report wbits to haemovigilance
Why would you get away with a wbit 50% of the time?
50% of population is group O
Comment on the trends in ABO incompatible transfusions over the year
Number of ABO incompatible transfusions has decreased over the past 20 years
- up to 30 a year in 1990s but now only a few a year
The number of ABOi related deaths are decreasing as well
ABOi red cell transfusions are trending upwards
What does SHOT claim are the reasons for increase in ABOi red cell transfusions
Understaffed labs - people working too hard - under too much pressure
The harder staff work the more wbits that are missed etc
Give some specific examples of errors that cause HTRs
Where a BMT patient was given blood of new blood type by a MS instead of O- while still changing blood type
In A&E where a sample was taken from an incorrect patient WBIT
Unable to detect hidden antibodies due to antibodies against frequent antigens such as anti-c
Talk in detail about the HTR caused by the anti-c
Anti-c antibody caused positivity in all but 2 cells, hidden anti-Jka reactivity
Woman transfused two units
Developed haematuria and sever back pain within 5 hours of transfusion of the 2nd unit
Post transfusion an anti-c and anti-JK were found
When pre-transfusion sample was reviewed the anti-Jka was identified
The 2nd unit transfused was positive for Jka
The Jka had been excluded in error - Jka negative units should have been issues
The MS was on duty and working alone out of hours, no second person available to check
The MS was fully trained and experienced ->human error, just a mistake
Patient made a full recovery, the reaction was noted due to error
Give some examples of incorrect ABO transfused for plasma products
Group B solvent detergent plasma was selected instead of AB Octaplas for a patient whose blood group was AB
- one unit eas initially issued and transfused
- error was discovered when further SD plasma was issued during the same transfusion event
- The MS involved in the error was assisting his colleague during a massive haemorrhage
Group A SD plasma was issued for a patient who was blood group AB
- occurred during a massive haemorrhage
- The MS had changed blood groups when issuring red cells, issuing group A to the patient as there were no further AB red cells in stock
- Group A SD plasma instead of uniplas was issued
- sinple lapse of concenentration where the MS was extremely aware of changing blood group
- occurred at 6-7am on a bank holiday morning when scientist as working alone
- there was no evidence of haemolysis in these patients and neither suffered any harm
To who do we report Serious adverse events?
National Haemovigilance Office (NHO)
In 2021 how many incorrect ABO transfusions with no reaction did we have, what were these caused by?
5 were detected - all 5 errors occured in the lab
Three were from the same hospital -> would have been investigated
Four stated incorrect component was issued
One stated historical reports had not been checked
Human error was cited as the causative factor in al 5 reports
What are the leading causes of transfusion-associated fatalities in the USA (reported by the FDA)?
TACO
TRALI
Contamination
HTR (ABO) -> 7% of total cases
Anaphylaxis
TR- type not determined
HTR (non-abo)
What antibodies are most common in TR fatalities
ABO (14/39)
Multiple antibodies (4/36)
Fya(4/36)
Jk and Fy antibodies account for about 1/3 of fatalities - combined results from individual antibody cases but are often seen in combination with others
How are HTR fatalities trending in the US?
Trending downwards