Antigen negative red blood cell inventory of Indian blood donors.

BACKGROUND: Screening the donor population for clinically important antigens and creating a database of phenotyped donors will eliminate the tedious task of large scale screening for antigen negative units. The aim of the present study is to identify donors lacking common antigens and a combination of common antigens to establish an antigen negative inventory. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Blood samples of 1221 regular blood donors were phenotyped for the clinically important common antigens of the Rh, Duffy, Kell, Kidd and MNS blood group systems using standard tube technique. RESULTS: Out of 1221 total donors tested, we observed that 261 donors lacked a combination of clinically important common antigens (C, D, e, Fya, Jka, s). After excluding the RhD negative donors in this study 15.56% lacked a combination of two or three common antigens. Of all donors, 3.2% lacked Fya and Jka antigens, 1.96% Fya and s, 1.88% Jka and s antigens and 0.57% lacked three common antigens. DISCUSSION: An antigen negative inventory of donors who lack a single common antigen or a combination of common antigens was prepared from regular donors which will prove useful for efficient management of transfusion therapy in patients with multiple antibodies against common antigens.