From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: crossmatching blood before transfusion
Date: 13 Jul 2005 18:39:37 -0700
Message-ID: <1121305177.367488.296660@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

>>How could this have happened if the blood is crossmatched.  What is the
procedure for crossmatching blood? <<

Blood is crossmatched unless there's a dire emergency and it's needed
in a great hurry. (In which case they give O-neg and hope for the best)

In a crossmatch they mix the plasma of the donor's blood with the red
cells of the recipient's blood, and vice versa. This alerts them to the
presence of antibodies that cause acute transfusion reactions (they
cause cells to agglutinate), but even crossmatching doesn't prevent
late transfusion reactions which are caused by antibodies in smaller
amounts, and antibodies that develop later as the body makes them.
However, it's EXTREMELY rare for one of these late reactions to be so
severe as to cause renal failure (since they happen slowly, by
definition). Reactions so bad they cause renal failure happn fast, and
most of them are due to human error in giving the wrong blood. Either
that, or his kidneys are failing for some other reason.

Anyway, your story is a strange one.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: crossmatching blood before transfusion
Date: 15 Jul 2005 17:28:04 -0700
Message-ID: <1121473684.820098.204870@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

nospam@aol.com wrote:
> On 13 Jul 2005 18:39:37 -0700, Steve Harris
> <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >>>How could this have happened if the blood is crossmatched.  What is the
> >procedure for crossmatching blood? <<
> >
> >Blood is crossmatched unless there's a dire emergency and it's needed
> >in a great hurry. (In which case they give O-neg and hope for the best)
> >
> >In a crossmatch they mix the plasma of the donor's blood with the red
> >cells of the recipient's blood, and vice versa. This alerts them to the
> >presence of antibodies that cause acute transfusion reactions (they
> >cause cells to agglutinate), but even crossmatching doesn't prevent
> >late transfusion reactions which are caused by antibodies in smaller
> >amounts, and antibodies that develop later as the body makes them.
> >However, it's EXTREMELY rare for one of these late reactions to be so
> >severe as to cause renal failure (since they happen slowly, by
> >definition). Reactions so bad they cause renal failure happn fast, and
> >most of them are due to human error in giving the wrong blood. Either
> >that, or his kidneys are failing for some other reason.
> >
> >Anyway, your story is a strange one.
> >
> >SBH
>
> Now they are saying that the reaction might have been caused by sensitivity or
> allergy to the dye used in the two different angiograms which they performed.
>
> Ora

COMMENT:

That's a LOT more likely.

BTW, such things from dye are generally reversable. The kidneys
recover.

SBH