Blood grouping with the Olympus PK7100 testing system.

The Olympus PK7100, an automated microtitre blood typing machine, identifies, aliquots, and dilutes samples, adds reagents, photometrically detects agglutination, and records reaction results, with a throughput of 240 samples/h. A total of 20,147 donors was tested in parallel with the Groupamatic 360. Of these, 207 could not be ABO typed after two runs. Three samples typed as B by the Olympus were found to be A2B. Seventy-seven could not be typed for D after two runs. Of these, 55 were Rh positive and 22 negative. The Olympus identified 37 of 48 Du positive samples as Rh positive, while it typed three as Rh negative, and eight as 'uncertain'. None of these samples was identified as Rh positive by the Groupmatic 360. The Olympus PK7100 is accurate, reliable, easy to operate, and capable of high throughput with minimal operator intervention.