Antibody Screen

Synonyms

Type and screen

Definition

In transfusion medicine, an antibody screen refers to testing patient serum or plasma for unexpected alloantibodies to donor red cells. These IgG antibodies, which differ from antibodies to the ABO and Rh blood groups, are deemed clinically significant if they are known to cause transfusion reactions or hemolytic disease in newborns. An antibody screen, on top of blood type determination, makes up the standard “type and screen” and can correctly rule out clinically significant transfusion reaction over 99.94 % of the time (Reid 2010).

Donor plasma, as it is being processed, is tested to ensure no unexpected antibodies are transfused. Recipient plasma is tested against commercially prepared red blood cells (RBCs) in a warm agglutination reaction. These FDA-approved type O standard RBCs come from at least two donors and contain all of the common clinically significant D, C, E, c, e, M, N, S, s, P₁, Le^a, Le^b, K, k, Fy^a, Fy^b, Jk^a, and Jk^bantigens...