The U antigen is part of the MNS blood
group system and is a high incidence antigen being found in approximately 99%
of Black individuals and virtually 100% of Caucasians. Consequently having a
patient with anti-U who needs blood is, as my grandson would say, a pain in the
glass.
I came in to the early shift today to
find one such case. With a haemoglobin of 45 g/L the patient was symptomatic.
Blood had been requested yesterday… we had been told that frozen blood was
available. But it was frozen and was actually in Liverpool three hundred miles
away.
There’s all sorts of talk about learning
from these incidents and there is a lot to be learned. What do you do in a
situation like this? Give blood which may well be detrimental, or wait until
the blood is available… the waiting being detrimental.
I’m glad it’s not a decision I have to
make.
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