Advancements in Blood Typing Solutions: Addressing complex cases in the field

On June 25, during the ISBT Barcelona 2024 congress, we welcome you to our Blood Typing Solutions Symposium:

June 25, 2024

12:30h- 13:30h

Room 112

Symposium Content:

"An exploration of the advantages of automated titration testing” - Dr. Alejandro Jaureguizar. Hospital Trias i Pujol (Banc de Sang i Teixits)

"Blood group genotyping: an important tool to resolve serology discrepancies" - Dr. Donatella Londero. Hospital Udine.

"Performance evaluation of a soluble CD38 recombinant protein (sCD38) as a new tool to solve anti-CD38 interference in pre-transfusion testing)” - Dr. Núria Nogués. Banc de Sang i Teixits.

Chair: Dr. Greg Denomme

Resolving complex immunohematology cases in the field in an efficient and timely manner forms the foundation of laboratory advancements to improve patient care and deliver quality results. This satellite symposium will summarize three recent advancements in blood typing solutions: 1) automation of titrations, 2) applications in blood group genotyping, and 3) the use of soluble CD38 in laboratory testing.

Are there any topics you would like to discuss with us? - Come and meet our Grifols Expert team any time during the congress at booth C.09

Level of the symposium:

Basic to moderate with an understanding of pre-transfusion antibody testing and blood group genetics.

Objectives of the symposium:

1. Understand how automated blood group titers can help harmonize testing to obtain consistent and reproducible titers in a timely fashion with minimal human intervention
2. Recognize the link between a blood group genotype and a predicted phenotype
3. Identify at least one clinical application benefiting from blood group genotyping that cannot be addressed by phenotyping
4. Contrast how the neutralization effect of soluble CD38 is a simple alternative over reagent RBC pretreatment with dithiothreitol when performing RBC pre-transfusion antibody screening

Advancements in Clinical Practice Applications – addressing gaps

Antibody titrations have a number of applications in transfusion medicine with the most critical being the management of HDFN. Current manual methods have limited reproducibility mainly due to the differences in preforming manual doubling dilutions and the subjectively of the endpoint. Automated titrations address these two limitations while providing titration results in a timely fashion. Dr Alejandro Jaureguizar, Banc de Sang i Teixits (Barcelona)will summarize the aspects and value of automated antibody titrations.

Applications of blood group genotyping address a need that cannot be met by serologic (antibody) phenotyping. Among several applications, genotyping can aide in antibody identification, can be performed in the absence of blood group antisera, and can recognize blood group antigen variants. Dr Donatella Londero from Azienda Ospedaliera Santa Maria della Misericordia (Italy) will present clinical applications of blood group genotyping.

CD38 is expressed on RBCs and anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody therapy (e.g. daratumumab) is known to interfere with the detection of blood group alloantibodies.  A few applications have been developed including the pretreatment of reagent RBCs with dithiothreitol, which is onerous to perform and difficult to standardize. A soluble CD38 has been shown to neutralize the effect of anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody in serum/plasma and is a simple solution to pre-transfusion testing for patients receiving monoclonal anti-CD38 therapy. Dr Nuria NOGUES, PhD, Banc de Sang i Teixits (Barcelona) will review and summarize the data on the ability of soluble CD38 to neutralize anti-CD38 in serum/plasma of patients undergoing daratumumab and related therapies.