Detection of RhD antigen by flow cytometry and its clinical applications

Objective To detect RhD antigen by flow cytometry (FCM) and to study its clinical application in RhD(+) RBC enumeration. Methods RhD(+) RBC was mixed with RhD(-) RBC at 9 different proportions and all were directly and indirectly stained, then were analyzed with FCM for relative and absolute RhD(+) RBC enumeration. The samples of 2 RhD(-) patients who mistakenly received RhD(+) blood were analyzed by FCM. Results The directly staining method was more accurate than the indirectly staining method. The results of FCM showed that single platform assay and dual platform assay had no significant difference compared with theoretical values (F=0.0325, P0.05). The absolute counts of RhD(+) cell of 2 patients at 3 different times were 0.124×10 12 /L, 0.245 ×10 12 /L and 0.517×10 12 /L respectively.Conclusion FCM can be used to detect RhD antigen and perform RhD(+) cell counts in patients with RhD(-) who received incompatible blood.