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The Secret of Full Cross-matching: Why is this Technology So Important?
In today's healthcare system, blood compatibility testing is critical to ensuring a successful blood transfusion or organ transplant. Among them, cross-matching is a key technology that helps doctors confirm the compatibility between the recipient's blood and the donor's blood to prevent potential immune reactions. As technology has advanced, the process has gradually shifted from traditional laboratory testing to electronic cross-matching, which provides faster results and reduces the risk of human error.
Cross-matching is an important procedure to ensure the safety and effectiveness of blood, especially in emergency situations.
The process of cross-matching
The process of cross-matching involves mixing the recipient's plasma with a sample of the donor's red blood cells. If the two are incompatible, antibodies in the recipient's plasma will bind to antigens on the donor's red blood cells, which will trigger visible aggregation or destruction of the red blood cells. This reaction can be detected by observing the presence of agglomeration in the mixture in the sample.
In some emergency situations, blood may be issued without cross-matching being completed. The risk of a transfusion reaction is usually reduced by sending compatible ABO blood.
Different types of cross-matching
The main cross-matching methods are as follows:
Instant centrifugal cross-matching
This is a fast cross-matching method that mainly detects incompatibility between ABO blood groups. This method involves mixing the patient's serum with the donor's red blood cells at room temperature and then centrifuging to see if there is agglutination or hemolysis.
Anti-human globulin cross-matching
This method is tested by mixing the recipient’s serum with the donor’s red blood cells and then adding antiglobulin. It is actually an indirect Coomb’s test.
Electronic cross-matching
This is a method of computer-aided analysis that uses donor and recipient blood type data to compare. This model relies on the recipient having no active abnormal antibodies and requires data processing to be completed on an electronic platform.
The emergence of electronic cross-matching not only improves efficiency, but also reduces the possibility of manual errors.
What to do in an emergency
In some emergency situations, medical personnel may choose to use type-specific blood immediately because cross-matching takes about an hour. In an ambulance or emergency room, where doctors prioritize avoiding life-threatening transfusions, using type O and Rh-negative blood is common practice.
In some medical institutions, O-blood is reserved for use only by women of childbearing age. This arrangement can not only protect the precious O-blood supply, but also avoid the risk of inappropriate reactions of the lymphatic system.
Conclusion
The improvement of cross-matching technology has effectively guaranteed the safety of blood transfusion, which is not only reflected in blood transfusion, but also plays an indispensable role in organ transplantation. Whether in daily medical procedures or in response to emergencies, this technology has shown its decisive value. Facing the future, as technology advances, will cross-matching further evolve to adapt to changing medical needs and challenges?
