Transfusion medicine handbook

9. Other Services Provided by NZBS

9.6 Red Cell Reference Laboratory (Immunohaematology)

The NZBS Red cell Reference Laboratory is located in the NZBS Auckland centre and offers a national immunohaematology testing service as well as clinical and technical advice for resolving problems encountered during pretransfusion and antenatal testing such as:

• blood grouping, antibody screening and crossmatching
• antibody identification/confirmation and resolution of difficult antibody mixtures
• antibody titration (antenatal, cold agglutinins and isohaemoagglutinins)
• adsorption and elution studies for patients with autoantibodies
• red cell phenotyping and genotyping
• management of rare donor file
• clinical relevance of antibodies to high frequency antigens prior to transfusion
• monocyte monolayer assay- this is a laboratory test where monocytes are placed in a single layer and then exposed to a combination of red blood cells mixed with antibodies. It predicts the likelihood that antibodies detected in a patient will cause red cell destruction. Usually, it is only performed when red cell units without the corresponding antigen are hard to find.