Screening for IgA deficiency on the Olympus PK7100 by haemagglutination inhibition

摘要

SUMMARY.Severe or life‐threatening anaphylactic reactions during blood transfusion to patients with anti‐IgA, though infrequent, can be avoided by transfusing blood products prepared from IgA deficient donors. This report describes the development and use a passive haemagglutination assay adapted for use on the Olympus PK7100 blood group analyser. Donor plasma samples identified as being presumptive IgA deficient were further screened by a manual passive haemagglutination inhibition technique and finally confirmed by means of a quantitative enzymelinked immunosorbent assay. Of 5723 donors tested simultaneously for IgA deficiency, blood grouping and red cell antibody screening, six (1 in 954) were confirmed as IgA deficient (i.e.<100ng/ml of IgA). The test is simple and cost effective and can be used to establish a database of IgA‐deficient d