Neither article talks about whether this is a minor or a major antigen.
Blood for transfusion needs to be crossmatched against antigen types of the recipient. Many patients will tolerate several transfusions of a minor mismatched antigen before developing a sensitivity. Major antigens are what cause significant reactions that can be life-threatening.
Minor antigens come into play when crossmatching for infants and premies, but this is way beyond my scope.
JackFr · 2h ago
I recently had major surgery and got two units of blood in during the operation and two more post-op. Post-op before I got the blood, they typed my blood again, and a nurse stayed in the room while I got the blood and I wondered why. This comment makes it clear.
xattt · 1h ago
Close observation for 15 minutes is typical for any blood transfusion. You do a set of pre-transfusion vitals, vitals when the blood hits the vein, vitals every 5 minutes until 15 minutes is up, vitals every 15 minutes until the blood is done. Ask any nurse why they hate running blood.
Depending on the severity of the reaction, blood will either be stopped or the patient will be loaded up with Benadryl and Tylenol with the blood running at a slower rate.
yorwba · 2h ago
With a single known case of somebody producing antibodies against the antigen, it might be a bit hard to say how many transfusions it typically takes to develop a sensitivity.
ajb · 1h ago
That's interesting; I didn't know that to realize it was missing.
kimos · 8m ago
My clearly incorrect understanding was that there are ~8 blood types. So reading that there are 48 is shocking.
Apparently the ISBT have added this to their list: https://www.isbtweb.org/isbt-working-parties/rcibgt.html (the page still says 47 but the data tables have it added)
Blood for transfusion needs to be crossmatched against antigen types of the recipient. Many patients will tolerate several transfusions of a minor mismatched antigen before developing a sensitivity. Major antigens are what cause significant reactions that can be life-threatening.
Minor antigens come into play when crossmatching for infants and premies, but this is way beyond my scope.
Depending on the severity of the reaction, blood will either be stopped or the patient will be loaded up with Benadryl and Tylenol with the blood running at a slower rate.