Posted: June 9, 2010
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Addenda:
A California blood banker reports on two different pregnant women who have very low titer antibodies. One patient has Anti-E and the other patient has Anti-M. Both women were in their first trimester when the initial prenatal antibody detection testing was performed. Both have weak reactivity with neat (undiluted) plasma and no reactivity with 1:1 dilution. The inquiring blood banker asks if colleagues would perform a titration study for such known weak antibodies if the baseline titer is <1, and especially if the result of a current antibody screen is the same as a previous one? In order to attempt to answer this question for her own institution, the inquiring colleague's blood bank has reviewed 3 years of data of 15 different prenatal patients with single antibodies that reacted weakly on neat plasma with no reactivity on diluted plasma (1:1). 3 series of titrations were performed on each of the 15 patients. The results of the series of titrations were the same as the baseline. The inquiring colleague asks if based on the aforementioned data, would it be safe to discontinue titration on weakly reacting antibodies (granting that the subsequent testing gave the same results), as long as the baseline titer was done and <1?
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