A crossmatch is a medical test to confirm compatibility of donor blood, tissue, or organs, identifying any reactions that could make a transfusion or transplant dangerous. It can be physical or electronic, and is an important part of patient safety screening.
A crossmatch is a medical test to confirm the compatibility of donor blood, tissue or organs. A doctor will order this test after basic screening suggests that the donor material should be compatible. The goal is to identify any reactions that could make a transfusion or transplant dangerous. In an emergency situation, a physician may request immediate donor material that matches the type of patient, but not necessarily crossbreeding. This usually occurs when the risk of death without the transfusion is greater than the risk of illness or injury from it.
In a crossmatch procedure, a technician draws serum from the patient’s blood and inoculates it with blood cells from the donor. If the reaction is negative, nothing happens. The patient has no antibodies to the donor cells, or has them in such low concentrations that they do not trigger an immune response. If the sample begins to clump, it indicates that antibodies are present and a transfusion or transplant cannot be performed safely because the patient’s immune system will attack the donor material.
Many laymen are familiar with the concept of matching by type, often using the ABO blood type. Patients with blood from different groups may experience reactions during transfusions due to antibodies. Type, however, isn’t the only measure of compatibility. A patient could receive a blood transfusion that is theoretically a match and still experience a reaction due to other components in the blood known as factors. Crossmatch looks for factors that could cause a problem.
In addition to performing a physical crossmatch, it is also possible to do an electronic one. This is based on a detailed blood profile of the patient. If a patient has a negative antibody screen, the computer can search a donor database for a match. This type of cross-comparison isn’t available in all settings, but it can be useful in a location like a blood bank to quickly identify units of blood that should be safe for transfusion.
Transfusions and transplants ideally include a type and crossmatch before the recipient comes into contact with the donor material. This is an important part of patient safety screening. Before donor blood even enters the pool of available material, it will also be rigorously screened for signs of infectious organisms and other problems that could make a transplant or transfusion dangerous. Blood from a patient with hepatitis C, for example, cannot be used in transfusions because it would infect the recipient.
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