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Published on: September 6, 2017
Acute intravascular hemolysis after transfusion of a chimeric RBC unit
Axel Pruss1, Guido A Heymann, Anette Hell
1Institute for Transfusion Medicine, Clinic for Anesthesiology, University Hospital Charité, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. axel.pruss@charite.de
Background:
Natural blood cell chimerism rarely occurs in humans. The case of a patient who developed transfusion reaction due to the transfusion of chimeric RBCs is reported.
Case Report:
A 61-year-old male patient with blood group O received two units of packed and O-grouped RBCs after elective kidney surgery. Immediately after blood transfusion, the patient developed a hemolytic transfusion attack. The serologic re-examination revealed only a mixed-field pattern of agglutination of RBCs in one of the two transfused units. The donor of this unit was an apparently healthy 24-year-old male with a twin sister. Both of them showed an identical mixture of roughly 95 percent group O and 5 percent group B RBCs by gel agglutination technology and flow cytometry. The results were also confirmed by ABO blood group genotyping.
Conclusions:
This is the first report of a hemolytic transfusion reaction related to the transfusion of chimeric RBCs.
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