LATERAL FLOW ASSAY FOR SIMULTANEOUS TYPING OF ABO, RHESUS SUBGROUPS AND KELL

Background: Current simple methods for blood typing, such as slide techniques do not have stable end points, are cumbersome to perform and provide difficulties for documentation. Sophisticated techniques, such as the solid phase techniques, gel techniques and column agglutination techniques do provide more objective interpretation and give stable end points, but are rather slow and need a centrifugation step [1, 2]. All above mentioned techniques have in common that only one parameter at once can be determined. Aim: To develop a blood grouping format on the basis of known lateral flow assays [3], with multi-parameter testing and stable end point, but without centrifugation. Material: A lateral flow device was constructed with a separation membrane equipped in a cassette housing having a central application zone and 2 equidistant detection areas (one at each site of the application zone). In both detection areas, antibody reagents are printed in distinct parallel lines on the separation membrane (anti-A, anti-B, anti-D(VI-), anti-D(VI-), anti-K at one area; anti-C, anti-Cw, anti-c, anti-E, anti-e at the opposite area). Further, both detection areas contain a control area (ctl.) consisting of a flow control spot (anti-RBC) and an autocontrol spot