A study of platelet alloantibody in multiply-transfused haematology patients.

This paper studies the prevalence of platelet antibody in multiply-transfused leukaemia and other transfusion-dependent non-leukaemic patients, using a solid phase red cell adherence (SPRCA) assay and a microlymphocytotoxicity (LCT) test. A positivity rate of 26% in the leukaemic patients and 72% in non-leukaemic patients was obtained with the SPRCA assay, compared to a higher positivity rate of 69% and 83% in the respective groups using the LCT test. Several explanations are proposed. The lower sensitivity of the SPRCA assay suggests that the LCT test may need to be run concurrently for higher diagnostic yield. This paper also compares the performance between an in-house SPRCA test method and the commercial Capture P test kit, and good concordance was shown in repeated occasions.