A Papain‐Bromelin‐Polybrene Four‐Channel Autoanalyzer System for Blood Group Antibody Screening

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Abstract
A papain‐bromelin‐polybrene antibody screening four‐channel Autoanalyzer system was developed using basic flow charts. Use of four different test cells as well as four different techniques and accelerated sampling rate made possible adaptation of automated screening methods to the routine needs of a transfusion service. Parallel manual and Autoanalyzer assays of 22,912 sera during a 12‐month period showed that performance of the apparatus was not outstanding with respect to some naturally occurring antibodies such as anti‐Lewis, anti‐P1, anti‐Lua and anti‐M. On the contrary, manually missed weak immune antibodies were well detected by the apparatus which showed a high sensitivity as well for many cross‐reacting and auto‐antibodies.Parallel screening of sera by both the machine and a simplified manual technique (saline, Coombs) using appropriate red cells appear to be a practical and reliable antibody‐screening policy. The problem of identification of ‘Autoanalyzer‐specific’ antibodies remains to be resolved in routine practice of transfusion laboratories.