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Phenotyped red cell components are used to:
- prevent alloimmunisation, and
- provide compatible red cells for transfusion in patients with clinically significant antibodies.
Patients who have a clinically significant antibody or have a history of a clinically significant antibody, should be provided with red cells negative for the relevant antigen.
The table below shows red cell antigens that are known to stimulate clinically significant antibodies and the frequencies of corresponding antigen-negative phenotypes:
Frequency of antigen-negative red cell phenotypes for clinically significant antibodies
| Antibody | Frequency of antigen-negative phenotype |
|---|---|
| D | 21.0% |
| C | 34.7% |
| c | 20.8% |
| E | 73.1% |
| e | 2.4% |
| K | 92.5% |
| k | 1.6% |
| Jka | 23.0% |
| Jkb | 27.8% |
| S | 50.0% |
| s | 9.2% |
| U | 0.1% (rare) |
| Fya | 31.0% |
| Fyb | 24.1% |
A full list of major blood group phenotypes can be found here.
For patients who have non-clinically significant antibodies, the red cells don’t need to be antigen-negative for the corresponding antibody.
The following table provides a list of antigens that stimulate antibodies generally considered not to be clinically significant and the associated frequencies of antigen-negative phenotypes:
Frequency of antigen-negative red cell phenotypes for non-clinically significant antibodies
| Antibody | Frequency of negative phenotype |
|---|---|
| A1 | 67% |
| CW | 98% |
| Kpa | 97.6% |
| M | 20.0% |
| N | 29.8% |
| P1 | 21.0% |
| Lea | 77.6% |
| Leb | 27.7% |
| Lea+b | 6.0% |
| Lua | 92.3% |
| Wra | 99.9% |
For patients with rare red cell phenotypes or who have multiple clinically significant antibodies, Lifeblood may not have suitable red cell units immediately available in it's inventory. If so, we can source appropriate units by:
- contacting donors with the desired phenotyped donors to arrange a donation
- recovering phenotyped red cells from our frozen inventory, or
- requesting assistance from other international blood services.
Transfusion laboratories may find our Red Cell Phenotype Calculator useful when determining blood requirements for transfusion or communicating blood availability to clinicians as part of the clinical decision-making process.
