BACKGROUND: It was reported that a continuous education program and external proficiency testing (PT) for blood grouping test (BGT) might be necessary because some blood centers of medical institutions could not correctly examine ABO subtype and D variant, according to the results of the first year project in 2011. Therefore, the results of PT for BGT in blood centers in 2012 and 2013 were compared to those in 2011 in order to assess the impact of projects during a period of three years and to help in planning the future PT for BGT. METHODS: Whole blood survey samples composed of three panels for ABO grouping and three panels for D typing were sent to 74 and 71 institutes in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Evaluation criteria for BGT were as follows: 'Good' for the answers matched with intended results, 'Acceptable' for the correct answers other than that of 'Good', and 'Unacceptable' for the answers other than those of 'Good+acceptable' as correct answers. RESULTS: The answer rates of 'Unacceptable' for ABO subtype were 1.4% in 2012 and 4.2% in 2013. However, the answer rate of 'Good' increased from 44.6% in 2012 to 83.1% in 2013. The answer rate of 'Unacceptable' for D variants showed a marked decrease, from 16.2% in 2012 to 1.4% in 2013. CONCLUSION: Projects for PT for BGT during a period of three years have improved laboratory quality in blood centers. However, the acquisition and change of the materials for PT would be necessary in order to continuously and practically provide help to blood centers.
Academies and Institutes ; Blood Grouping and Crossmatching* ; Education

No abstract available.
Blood Grouping and Crossmatching* ; Humans* ; Nasal Mucosa*

BACKGROUND: The use of automated systems for pre-transfusion tests is increasing in an attempt to reduce workload and the impact of human errors in blood banks. We evaluated the clinical performance of the automated blood bank systems IH-500 (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Switzerland) and VISION Max (Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, USA) for ABO-RhD blood typing and unexpected antibody screening. METHODS: ABO-RhD blood typing was performed for 410 samples, and antibody screening was performed for 332 samples, including 15 antibody-positive samples. The results obtained from the two automated instruments were compared with those obtained using manual methods for ABO-RhD blood typing and a semiautomated method (DiaMed-ID system) for antibody screening. Additionally, both instruments were evaluated in terms of concordance rates, sensitivity, and carryover. RESULTS: The concordance rate of the ABO-RhD blood typing results between the manual methods and the two automated instruments was 100%. For antibody screening tests, the concordance rates between the semiautomated method (DiaMed-ID system) and the automated methods were 100% and 99.7% for the IH-500 and VISION Max instruments, respectively. The sole discrepant result was obtained for a sample identified as antibody-positive only on the VISION Max; the antibody was identified as anti-Le(a). The overall sensitivity of the two automated instruments was the same as or higher than that of the semiautomated method. Carryover was not observed in antibody screening. CONCLUSIONS: The IH-500 and VISION Max instruments showed reliable results for ABO-RhD blood typing and unexpected antibody screening, and can be used clinically, with confidence, for pre-transfusion tests in the blood bank.
Automation ; Blood Banks* ; Blood Grouping and Crossmatching* ; Humans ; Mass Screening* ; Methods

BACKGROUND: An exact ABO blood group is essential for prevention of transfusion accident and safe transfusion therapy. It is known that one of causes of ABO discrepancies is ABO subgroup caused by genetic polymorphism. Therefore, we analyzed ABO genotype of ABO discrepancies in blood donors and studied the distribution and cause of ABO discrepancies. METHODS: This study examined 118 samples showing ABO discrepancies of ABO blood typing between May 2003 and Dec 2003. ABO genotyping using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism(PCR-RFLP) method was performed on 118 samples. Restriction enzymes including BssH II, Kpn I and Alu I were used for PCR-RFLP. RESULTS: The genotypes of 118 cases were composed of 43 cases of A/B, 12 cases of A/O, 10 cases of B/O, 1 case of B/B, 37 cases of cis-AB/O, 4 cases of cis-AB/A, 11 cases of cis-AB/B. The genotype of cis-AB/O showed 32 cases with phenotype A2 B3 , 2 cases with phenotype A2 B, 2 cases with phenotype A1 B3 , 1 case with phenotype Ael B. The genotype of cis-AB/B showed 11 cases with phenotype A2 B, and cis-AB/A showed 2 cases with phenotype A2 B3 , 1 case with phenotype A1 Bx and 1 case with phenotype A1 Bel. CONCLUSION: These data demonstrated that the most frequent genotype of ABO discrepancies in our study is cis-AB. The most predominent phenotype of cis-AB/O is A2 B3 . ABO genotyping is useful in resolving ABO discrepancies, and determination of ABO subgroups.
Blood Donors* ; Blood Grouping and Crossmatching ; Genotype ; Humans ; Phenotype ; Polymorphism, Genetic

BACKGROUND: Korean Blood Safety Commission has implemented external proficiency testing (PT) for blood grouping test (BGT) to help improve the quality of blood centers since 2011. We analyzed the results of 2014 PT for BGT to help in planning the future PT for BGT and to improve the quality of blood centers. METHODS: Whole blood survey samples including three panels for ABO grouping and three panels for D typing were sent to 69 institutes. Evaluation criteria for BGT were as follows: 'Good' for answers matched with intended results, 'Acceptable' for correct answers other than that of 'Good', 'Unacceptable' for answers other than those of 'Good+acceptable' as correct answers; and 'Not graded' for answers in case of different answers in the two standard laboratories. RESULTS: All of the answer rates of 'Good' for D typing were 100%. However, the answer rates of 'Good' for cell typing, serum typing and interpretation for 14-ABO-2 samples with discrepant result between cell typing and serum typing were 39.1%, 29%, and 47.8%, respectively. Those of 'Unacceptable' for cell typing and interpretation for 14-ABO-2 samples were 2.8% and 1.4%. CONCLUSION: Because the answer rates of ABO grouping for samples with discrepant result between cell typing and serum typing were not high, education for this case is needed. Diversity of materials for PT would be necessary for more accurate evaluation of the performance of BGT in blood centers.
Academies and Institutes ; Blood Grouping and Crossmatching ; Blood Safety ; Education

BACKGROUND: The automation system for blood typing and antibody screening has been developed and is now used widely. In this study, we evaluated the economic effectiveness between automation system QWALYS-3 (DIAGAST, Loos Cedex, France) and manual testing. METHODS: Clinical samples from March 2012 were used for comparison of the costs and TAT for ABO-RhD blood typing and antibody screening. The costs included those of materials (reagents and consumables), labor, and equipment depreciation. TAT was analyzed for either blood typing only for one, 16, and 32 samples or blood typing and antibody screening for the same number of samples. RESULTS: The blood typing TAT for one, 16, and 32 samples was 4.5, 35.1, and 70.1 minutes by manual and 24.0, 36.0, and 38.1 minutes by automated system. Both blood typing and antibody screening TAT for one, 16, and 32 samples was 27.5, 75.0, and 129.9 minutes by manual and 45.0, 52.0, and 54.0 minutes by automation. CONCLUSION: The blood automation system reduced TAT only for the batch test, therefore, when using the automation system, blood bank test size and emergency situation should be considered.
Automation* ; Blood Banks* ; Blood Grouping and Crossmatching* ; Depreciation ; Emergencies ; Mass Screening*

OBJECTIVE: To detect the ABO / RhD blood type of infants younger than 6 months in different gestational age and month old with automatic microcolumn glass sphere and tube method, and compare the result of the two methods. METHODS: The data of 896 samples of infants younger than 6 months from January 2018 to February 2019 was collected. The two methods were used to detect ABO/RhD blood type in all samples and compare the detection rate of ABO/RhD antigen and ABO reverse typing and agglutination intensity of the two methods. RESULTS: Three hundred and eight cases of type A (34.4%), 281 cases of type B (31.4%), 210 cases of type O (23.4%), 97 cases of type AB (10.8%), and 896 positive cases of RhD blood type were detected out by two methods. There were no significant differences of ABO/RhD antigen agglutination intensity between two methods (P > 0.05). Except for type AB, the detection rate of ABO reverse typing in infants with type B was significantly higher than that with type A and type O (P < 0.05). The agglutination intensity of type A reverse cell was higher than type B reverse cell (P < 0.05). The fully automatic microcolumn glass sphere method exhibited higher detection rate of ABO reverse typing in the samples of type A and type O group and agglutination intensity of ABO reverse typing in all types as compared with the tube method (P < 0.05). The detection rate and agglutination intensity of ABO reverse typing in term group were significantly higher than those in preterm group (P < 0.05). The fully automatic microcolumn glass sphere method exhibited higher detection rate of ABO reverse typing and agglutination intensity compared with the tube method between two groups (P < 0.05). The detection rate and agglutination intensity of ABO reverse typing in group IV (4-6 months old) were significantly higher than those in groups I, II and III (young than 3 months old) (P < 0.05). The fully automatic microcolumn glass sphere method exhibited higher detection rate of ABO reverse typing in I, II, III groups and agglutination intensity of ABO reverse typing in the 4 groups compared with the tube method (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION ABO / RhD blood group antigen can be accurated detected in majority of infants, but the detection rate of ABO antibody is related to gestational age and month age of infants. The detection rate and agglutination intensity of the fully automatic microcolumn glass sphere method in ABO reverse typing are higher than those of the tube method, especially for premature infants and children within 3 months old.
ABO Blood-Group System ; Blood Grouping and Crossmatching ; Humans ; Infant

The results of ABO blood typing in 64-year-old patient with chronic renal and heart failure were positive with anti-B, delayed and weak positive with anti-A in the slide method for the cell typing, mixed-field agglutiniation by light microscopy in the tube method for the cell typing, and also was negative in anti-A, lectin and positive in anti-H, therefore blood typing of this patient was confirmed to A3B.
Blood Grouping and Crossmatching ; Heart Failure ; Humans ; Microscopy ; Middle Aged

BACKGROUND: The Korean Blood Safety Commission has implemented external proficiency testing (PT) for blood grouping test (BGT) since 2011. We analyzed the results of 2015 PT for BGT including hemagglutination grade for ABO BGT to help in planning the future PT for BGT and improving the quality of blood centers (BC). METHODS: Two kinds of whole blood survey samples composed of three panels for ABO grouping and three panels for D typing were sent to 68 institutes. Evaluation criteria for BGT were as follows: 'Good' for the answers matched with intended results, 'Acceptable' for the consensus answers other than that of 'Good', 'Unacceptable' for the answers other than those of 'Good+acceptable' as correct answers. RESULTS: The answer rates of 'Unacceptable' for ABO BGT were 0% for A(A1) antigen (Ag), 1.5% for B Ag, and 1.5% for ABW (A2BW) Ag, 15% of blood centers were graded as 'Acceptable' for ABW (A2BW) Ag because they could not detect BW Ag. All answers for D typing were 'Good' except one institute reported wrong switched results as D positive and D negative. Hemagglutination grade for ABO BGT varied from 77.2%~100% depending on blood groups and laboratories. CONCLUSION: Because some hospital BC could not detect BW Ag and there was a clerical error, continuous education should be required, and comparison of hemagglutination grade for ABO BGT of each BC would be helpful in improving quality of BC.
Academies and Institutes ; Blood Donors ; Blood Group Antigens ; Blood Grouping and Crossmatching ; Blood Safety ; Consensus ; Education ; Hemagglutination ; Humans

BACKGROUND: ABO blood typing in pre-transfusion testing is a major component of the high workload in blood banks that therefore requires automation. We often experienced discrepant results from an automated system, especially weak serum reactions. We evaluated the discrepant results by the reference manual method to confirm ABO blood typing. METHODS: In total, 13,113 blood samples were tested with the AutoVue system; all samples were run in parallel with the reference manual method according to the laboratory protocol. RESULTS: The AutoVue system confirmed ABO blood typing of 12,816 samples (97.7%), and these results were concordant with those of the manual method. The remaining 297 samples (2.3%) showed discrepant results in the AutoVue system and were confirmed by the manual method. The discrepant results involved weak serum reactions (<2+ reaction grade), extra serum reactions, samples from patients who had received stem cell transplants, ABO subgroups, and specific system error messages. Among the 98 samples showing ≤1+ reaction grade in the AutoVue system, 70 samples (71.4%) showed a normal serum reaction (≥2+ reaction grade) with the manual method, and 28 samples (28.6%) showed weak serum reaction in both methods. CONCLUSIONS: ABO blood tying of 97.7% samples could be confirmed by the AutoVue system and a small proportion (2.3%) needed to be re-evaluated by the manual method. Samples with a 2+ reaction grade in serum typing do not need to be evaluated manually, while those with ≤1+ reaction grade do.
ABO Blood-Group System/*blood ; Automation ; Blood Banks ; Blood Grouping and Crossmatching/instrumentation/*methods ; Humans