Would a National Antibody Register contribute to improving patient outcomes?

Abstract

Despite stringent testing protocols, there always remains a chance of a delayed haemolytic transfusion reaction (DHTR) occurring as a result of an undetected or unknown antibody. In this systemic review and meta-analysis, we aimed to investigate improvements to patient outcomes that could be achieved through the implementation of a national antibody registry. A series of searches through PubMed and SCOPUS identified a collection of articles with relevant information, restricted to full text, English language articles available through the RMIT Library service. 25 articles were considered for the review, four of these found to have relevant, extractable data for use in the meta-analysis. Alloantibody evanescence rates were analysed for the potential for reducing DHTRs associated with transfusion services, returning significant results indicating antibody evanescence rates of up to 68.4% in one study, with p-values less than 0.001. Due to the small number of included studies however, the interference values were quite high for these analyses at greater than 90% for each. Additional, beneficial side-effects of such a system were also considered, along with reductions in DHTRs. In conclusion it was determined that a National antibody registry would contribute to improving patient outcomes, however further studies could be performed to determine a stronger correlation, and exact levels of improvement that could be achieved.