Red Blood Cell Alloimmunization among Multiple Blood Transfusions Sudanese Patients

Objectives: This study aims to detect the alloantibody among patients treated by repeated blood
transfusion for at least three or more times.
Materials and methods: Across-sectional descriptive study design applied at Eldweem and Kosti teaching
hospitals, Sudan. One hundred have blood transfusion three times or more and their age between 1-70
years old recruited in this study. Three ml of venous blood samples were collected in Ethylene diamine
tetra acetic acid (EDTA) anticoagulant containers from each participant. For all participants, slide method
for ABO blood group and Rh factor were used. Indirect Coombs test apply to detect alloantibodies by
Polly Specific antihuman globulin reagents using tube method techniques.
Results: Results indicated that out of 142 multiple transfused patients; there were 82 (57.7%) males
and 60 (42.3%) females, and a total of 31 samples showing detection of RBC alloantibodies, out of 82
males, 22 (26.83%) showed presence of alloantibodies and out of 60 females, 9 (15%) showed presence
of alloantibodies. The participant’s mean age is 38.58 ± 20.85 years old. Patients with sickle cell anaemia
represented the highest rate of detected alloantibodies (80.6%) followed by patients with renal failure
and other anaemia, both with a detection rate of 9.7%. The highest occurrence of alloantibodies (5/13
(38.5%)) saw among patients who had blood transfusions more than 8 times followed by 6-8 times (11/47
(23%)), and by those having blood transfusion 3-5 times (15/82 (18%)).
Conclusion: This study has shown that frequently transfused patients are at risk of alloimmunisation,
which is highly recommended to be considered when reviewing repeatedly transfused patients.