Red cell antibody screening, red cell antibody identification and compatibility testing with the Column Agglutination Technology (CAT). The Bio Vue system.

A new system for irregular antibody screening was described in 1993 by Reis K.J. This test is performed in a microcolumn prefilled with glass microbeads in suspension in a neutral or Anti Human Globulin isotonic solution. When the red cells are sensitized they are trapped by the microbead suspension during column centrifugation. 21365 irregular antibody screenings were performed with this Column Agglutination Technology (CAT) and the results were compared to those obtained with conventional manual tests. The CAT was more efficient than the manual tests. The number of positive samples containing specific antibodies was higher with CAT tests (924 samples) than with manual tests (802 samples). The CAT is easy to perform and the elimination of washing steps decreases the overall test time. It allows the use of this test for pre-transfusion compatibility testing particularly in emergency transfusion cases. The red cell age and more generally the red cell storage conditions seem to be an influential parameter on the percentage of unspecific reactions. In this study the unspecific reaction rate was low but we used only reagent red cells prepared every day. This new technology may be considered as an alternative technology to the Gel Test in Blood Transfusion security.