A Dull Day At Work...?

22 January 2021 (Friday) - Anti-Kp(a)

I had a rather fraught early shift today… in retrospect it wasn’t that busy, but having had a quiet one yesterday I had been hoping for more of the same. But within an hour or so of starting work I had detected an atypical blood group antibody and had identified it.
Anti-Kp(a)
Anti-Kp(a) is rather obscure as antibodies go… with only two per cent of the population (at best) carrying the antigen it can be a challenge for those who produce antibody panels to be able to include it in their repertoire. I must admit I can’t remember having identified one myself before.

Directed at an antigen of the Kell blood group system, anti-Kp(a) can cause both haemolytic blood transfusion reactions and haemolytic disease of the foetus and newborn. Rather than copying and pasting (which would fool no one, here’s a few references…

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5850705/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2270/
http://www.ijbti.com/archive/2013-archive/100012IJBTIKQR2013-rossi/100012IJBTIKQR2013-rossi.pdf

and loads more can be found in less than thirty seconds with a search on Google.
I learned something today…

21 January 2021 (Thursday) - Transfusion News Update

The nice people at Transfusion News sent their update today. D-genotyping, more about the use of convalescent plasma (there’s a lot of contradictory stuff being said about this)… all good stuff.

RHD Genotyping in Transfusion Practice Could Identify Novel RHD Alleles and Conserve D-negative Blood

January 20, 2021
Partial D phenotypes (with altered D epitopes) and weak D phenotypes (with a reduced number of D antigens present on RBCs) are difficult to distinguish based on serology alone. Thus, genotyping the RHD locus is recommended to limit the risk of alloimmunization and to avoid unnecessary use of RhIG and D- blood. [Read More]

Early Convalescent Plasma Therapy Helps Prevent Severe COVID-19

January 12, 2021
COVID-19 convalescent plasma administered late in the course of disease has not shown clear benefits, but some studies suggest that early transfusion may be efficacious. In order to determine if convalescent plasma administered soon after infection may help to prevent severe disease in older patients, researchers in Argentina randomized 160 patients aged 65 or older to receive either convalescent plasma (N=80) or placebo (N=80) within 72 hours of symptom onset. [Read More]