Evaluation of the Automated Blood Bank Instrument QWALYS-3 for Cross-Matching Tests.
- Author:
Young Eun KOH
1
;
Jeong YOON
;
Sun hee KWON
;
Yoon Ho KIM
;
Jae Yeol CHOI
;
Joo Yeon KIM
;
Chi Hyun CHO
;
Chae Seung LIM
;
Soo young YOON
Author Information
1. Department of Laboratory Medicine, College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, Korea. malarim@korea.ac.kr
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords:
Blood bank;
Cross-matching;
Automation;
QWALYS-3
- MeSH:
Antibodies;
Automation;
Blood Banks*;
Follow-Up Studies;
Humans;
Mass Screening;
Plasma
- From:Korean Journal of Blood Transfusion
2014;25(3):218-225
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
BACKGROUND: The cross-matching test is regarded as an essential pre-transfusion test. It serves an important role in confirming the ABO/Rh compatibility of transfusion and screening for possible unexpected antibodies. We evaluated cross-matching tests in QWALYS-3 (DIAGAST, Loos Cedex, France), comparing the automated process to manual tube methods. METHODS: A total of 545 crossmatching tests from 169 patients, collected from RBC concentrate transfusion orders, were performed using both QWALYS-3 and manual tube methods. All patients were follow-up tested later on with antibody identification tests to confirm the presence of unexpected antibodies in plasma. RESULTS: None of the samples were ABO/Rh incompatible. The presence of unexpected antibodies was later confirmed in 277 tests in 56 patients. Out of those 277 tests, the concordance rate between two methods was 83.8% (232/277). In 268 tests which were later confirmed with no unexpected antibodies, manual tube methods did not show any positive results while five tests were false-positive (5/268, 1.9%) only in QWALYS-3. The overall concordance rate between two methods was 90.82%, and the kappa coefficient was 0.696 (P<0.05) (n=545). CONCLUSION: The QWALYS-3 system has its merits in accuracy, precision, and lack of possible human errors, however, the automated procedure showed some disadvantages, including relatively low cost-and-time-effectiveness, less effective cold antibody detection, and difficulties in handling small quantity samples. Thus, the QWALYS-3 system has meaningful, but only a limited value in the automation of routine cross-matching tests.
