Safety of type and screen method compared to conventional antiglobulin crossmatch procedures for compatibility testing in Indian setting

BACKGROUND: Over the past 30 years, pretransfusion tests have undergone considerable modification. In 1984, AABB recommended that the full cross match could be replaced by an abbreviated cross match in patients with negative antibody screen. However, before implementation of such a policy, issue regarding safety of T & S needs to be evaluated. OBJECTIVES: The aim of pretransfusion testing (PTT) is to ensure that enough red blood cells (RBCs) in the selected red cell components will survive when transfused. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: We have, therefore in this study; evaluated safety of T & S procedure for PTT in comparison with conventional test tube cross match. The T & S procedure gave a safety of 91.6%. Also, the usefulness of the T & S was shown through the detection of unexpected antibodies in 0.75% (15 out of 2026) of cases.