Phenotype matching for sickle cell patients

Transfusion requirements and the presence or absence of red cell antibodies influence recommendations on the extent of phenotyping and the utility of genotyping for sickle cell disease patients. [...] Transfusion therapy in sickle cell disease patients Red cell transfusion is a mainstay of therapy for sickle cell disease patients. [...] Vichinsky and colleagues in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1990 shows the frequency of antibodies of various specificities identified in the 32 alloimmunized sickle cell patients studied, 17 of whom had multiple antibodies (14). [...] The “White donors” and “African-American donors” columns show how different the frequencies for the relevant phenotypes are for the two racial populations, and show how supporting sickle cell patients with a Caucasian donor pool could increase the risk of alloimmunization. [...] Vichinsky and colleagues formally investigated the hypothesis that prophylactic antigen matching would decrease the frequency of alloimmunization in sickle cell patients with a planned secondary analysis as part of the STOP trial (18).