ABO

Incompatibility
• Discovered by Karl Landsteiner in 1901.
• Most important blood group in transfusion practice,
incompatibility may produce a severe transfusion reaction
in the patient.
• The only blood group system in which individuals have
antibodies in their serum to antigens absent from their
RBCs.

The ABO Blood Group

ABO Typing
Expression
Forward Typing
Reverse Typing
ABO Typing
Troubleshooting
Causes of ABO
Discrepancies
• Final check for ABO Compatibility
• Detection of presence of antibody in patient’s serum that will react
with antigens on donor RBCs not detected by antibody screening
because specific antigen was lacking from screening cells.
• Major crossmatch: This is the most important one. In this
procedure, we are looking for antibodies in the recipient against
transfused red blood cell antigens (from the donor). Therefore, we
need serum from the recipient and red blood cells from the donor.
• Minor crossmatch: This detects antibodies in the donor serum to the
recipient's red blood cells. Therefore, for this we need serum from the
donor and red blood cells from the recipient.
• Autocontrol: We also perform an auto-control with our
crossmatches, i.e. recipient serum with recipient red blood cells.

Crossmatching/
Compatibility Testing
Pre-Transfusion Process
Transfusion