Essential Guide to Blood Groups is the only pocket sized guide to provide essential information on blood group systems. The main aim of the blood transfusion laboratory is to promote safe blood transfusion. The avoidance of errors, from sample receipt and laboratory testing through to the release of blood for transfusion, is of paramount importance.

Table of Contents

• Abbreviations
• An introduction to blood groups
• What is a blood group?
• Blood group antibodies
• Clinical importance of blood groups
• Biological importance of blood groups
• Blood group systems
• Blood group terminology and classification
• Techniques used in blood grouping
• Factors affecting antigen–antibody reactions
• Stages of haemagglutination reactions
• Direct agglutination
• Indirect agglutination
• Elution techniques
• Automation of test procedures
• Flow cytometry
• Molecular blood group genotyping
• The ABO blood groups
• Introduction
• ABO antigens, antibodies, and inheritance
• A1 and A2
• Antigen, phenotype, and gene frequencies
• ABO antibodies
• Importance of the ABO system to transfusion and transplantation medicine
• Biochemical nature of the ABO antigens
• Biosynthesis of the ABO antigens and ABO molecular genetics
• H, the precursor of A and B
• ABH secretion
• H-deficient red cells
• Further complexities
• Acquired changes
• Associations with disease and functional aspects
• The Rh blood group system
• Introduction – Rh, not rhesus
• Haplotypes, genotypes, and phenotypes
• Biochemistry and molecular genetics
• D antigen (RH1)
• Molecular basis of the D polymorphism
• C, c, E, and e antigens (RH2, RH4, RH3, RH5)
• Other Rh antigens
• Rh-deficient phenotypes – Rhnull and Rhmod
• Putative function of the Rh proteins and RhAG
• Other blood groups
• The Kell system
• The Duffy system
• The Kidd system
• The MNS system
• S (MNS3) and s (MNS4); anti-S and -s
• Other MNS antigens and antibodies
• The Diego system
• The Lewis System
• Some other blood group systems
• Antigens that do not belong to a blood group system
• Clinical significance of blood group antibodies
• Antibody production and structure
• Factors affecting the clinical significance of antibodies
• Antibody specificity
• Haemolytic transfusion reactions (HTR)
• Haemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN)
• Autoantibodies
• Tests to assess the potential significance of an antibody
• Decision-making for transfusion
• Blood grouping from DNA
• Fetal blood grouping
• Blood group typing of patients and donors
• Next generation sequencing
• The future of blood group serology
• Quality assurance in immunohaematology
• Achieving total quality
• Frequency and specificity of control material
• Quality requirements for safe transfusion practice
• Checklist of critical control points
• Laboratory errors, root cause analysis (RCA), and corrective and preventive action (CAPA)
• Trouble-shooting andproblem-solving in thereference laboratory
• ABO grouping
• Rh grouping
• Problems in antibody screening, identification, and crossmatching
• Frequently asked questions
• What is the difference between sensitivity and specificity and how can these be determined?
• Why is anti-A,B no longer obligatory in ABO typing?
• Why are two anti-D reagents often recommended for RhD typing?
• What is the importance of detecting D variant (weak D and partial D) phenotypes?
• How do I control the results for antiglobulin testing?
• Why should RhD positive women be tested more than once during pregnancy?
• How often should transfusion recipients be tested for the presence of antibodies?
• How can passive anti-D be differentiated from anti-D due to alloimmunisation?
• Why do we need to perform antibody screening? Isn't a crossmatch by IAT at 37°C enough to detect incompatible blood?
• What is the incidence of alloimmunisation post-transfusion?
• How do I determine and identify antibodies present in a sample?
• What is a compound antibody?
• How can the incidence of compatible donors for a recipient with multiple antibodies be calculated?
• Why can't the droppers in bottles of reagents be used instead of a volumetric pipette?
• What cells should be used when performing an antibody titration?
• How are the results of titrations reported?
• What is a Major Obstetric Haemorrhage?
• What is ‘Massive Transfusion’?
• When group-specific blood is in short supply, how do I select the ‘next best’ for transfusion?
• How are high-titre haemagglutinins classified?
• What is an ‘immediate spin’ crossmatch?
• What is an ‘electronic crossmatch’?
• Which patients are not eligible for electronic issue of blood?
• What is ‘bed-side’ testing?
• What are signs and symptoms of a suspected transfusion reaction?
• What action should be taken in the event of a suspected transfusion reaction?
• In haemovigilance, how should ‘near-miss’ events be characterised?
• Recommended reading and web sites