Comparative study of ABO antibody titers using conventional tube technique and automated column agglutination technique

Abstract

Abstract:
Background: ABO antibody titration is an integral part for management of ABO incompatible organ transplantation, especially ABO-incompatible kidney transplants. Due to the precision of an automation, we planned to apply a fully automated antibody titration method using the column agglutination technique (auto-CAT) instead of a conventional tube technique (CTT). Objective: To compare and correlate ABO antibody titers using CTT and auto-CAT. Materials and Methods: A total of 180 donor serum samples consisted of 60 samples for each A, B and O blood groups, antibody titrations were performed using CTT and auto-CAT simultaneously. Spearman’s correlation and Bland-Altman plot were used to determine the correlation of ABO antibody titers between the two methods and to compare the methods agreement, respectively. Results: In all samples, the concordance rate of CTT and auto-CAT for IgM and IgG ABO antibody titers were 81.67% to 98.30% and correlated well with spearman rho correlation coefficient of 0.73-0.94 (p < 0.001). The Bland-Altman plot showed that the mean differences between the two methods were -0.39 to 0.53. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that ABO antibody titers measured by auto-CAT and CTT had a highly significant correlation, and good agreement indicated reliable results. Thus auto-CAT can be implemented to perform antibody titration in routine laboratory testing.