Blood transfusions in dogs and cats: blood typing and cross matching
Abstract
The blood transfusion (administration of blood) is a resource of veterinary medicine with several indications. Point-of-care blood-typing methods, including both typing cards and rapid gel agglutination, are readily available. Following blood typing, cross matching is performed on one or more donor units of appropriate blood type. Cross matching reduces the risk of transfusion reactions but does not completely eliminate the risk of other types of transfusion reactions in veterinary patients. All transfusion reactions should be appropriately documented and investigated. It is, therefore, important to have in-depth technical knowledge about concepts and procedures involved in clinical blood transfusion, so that the entire procedure can be performed in the most appropriate way and with a high success rate.
Blood transfusions in small animal medicine have become more common and are now an integral part of advanced treatment. Often, the indication for blood transfusion occurs in the emergency or surgical setting. Situations that may require transfusion include life-threatening anaemia from acute haemorrhage, haemolysis, problems due to drugs or toxins, immune-mediated diseases, severe non-regenerative conditions and neonatal isoerythrolysis (NI), among others.
Advances in critical care medicine have moved transfusion medicine to the forefront of management in such cases. To ensure efficacious and safe transfusions, it is important to perform blood typing and cross matching, as incompatible transfusions can be life threatening.
This article explores the different blood group categories for dogs and cats, and describes blood typing, cross matching, transfusion reactions and their prevention.
Blood groups are defined by inherited antigens on the surface of red blood cells (RBCs). They are important in transfusion medicine because of the risk of haemolytic reactions. Such reactions occur when there are antibodies directed against a blood group antigen (Kristensen and Feldman, 1995).
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