As of now there are 33 blood groups systems representing 300 antigens that are listed in

the International Society of Blood Transfusion. The important ones being MNS, Kell,
Duffy, Kidd, Lutheran & Lewis. The World Health Organization (WHO) is primarily
involved in providing guidelines for blood banking. In India, National AIDS control
program (NACO) along with National blood transfusion council (NBTC) are responsible
for formulating policies whereas FDA is the license issue authority for blood and blood
components.

The blood banks voluntarily collect blood from healthy donors, transport, store, screen
for transmissible diseases like HIV, Hepatitis B & C, Syphilis, Malaria, prepare
components like platelets, fresh frozen plasma (FFP), cryoprecipitate.etc, store at the
optimum temperature and issue these to patients according to the request. The blood is
only issued after grouping and cross matching and any problems arising are analyzed
and dealt with by the pathologist / transfusion officer in the blood bank. There is a
standard of procedure (SOP) to perform almost all the activities of the blood bank and
are strictly adhered to. Blood which is HIV or Hepatitis B is not always disposed, rather is
used for harvesting antibodies by various manufacturers who collect this blood from the
blood bank. Blood is stored as packed cells in different refrigerators for different groups
and each bag of blood or component has the date of issue, expiry and serology testing.

There is a transfusion committee for most of the hospitals who formulate the policies at
the local level like blood ordering schedule for various departments like surgery,
transplant and emergency room.

Chemical Pathology Chemical pathologists receive sample of patients from healthcare

professionals such as general practitioners and specialist doctors and to provide advice
on which tests to use and how to interpret the results of the tests when investigating
patients. This commonly includes a wide range of conditions such as liver disease, kidney
disease, high cholesterol, cancer, diabetes, and hormone imbalances. In these settings,
chemical pathologists interpret a wide range of metabolic disorders such as high
cholesterol, diabetes, hormone imbalances, kidney stones, bone disease and nutrition
imbalances. For most of the analysis, the serum sample is utilized.

Chemical pathologists authorize the tests for measuring markers of liver and kidney
function, hormones, drugs and tumour markers. Many of these analytes are measured on
automated analyzers which perform on various principles of wet or dry chemistry. The
values obtained from the serum samples are compared with established reference values
for specific demographic sections and a proper formatted report is given to the patient