Blood-to-blood Immunological Compatibility Test: A Possibility with Fluorescent Immuno-Biochips

One of the most feared transfusion accident is the haemolytic reaction. A majority of countries imposes a compatibility test before each transfusion, at the patient's bedside or in laboratory. Regardless of the test performed, it does not prevent human errors and nothing ensures an ``error free'' procedure. Complete crossmatch is the only test ensuring a complete blood compatibility between donors and patients. It relies on the direct or indirect detection of agglutinations which occur when the patient's plasma is mixed with the red cells to be transfused. It requires extracting plasma. The work described here will help avoid all the immunologic incompatibilities by the use of a compatibility test without plasma extraction. It relies on an immuno-biochip technology in a microfluidic environment with fluorescence detection. This position paper presents preliminary results obtained with artificial samples together with comments on the state of industrial competition and the new device market positioning.