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Variants of RhD – current testing and clinical consequences
Author(s) -
Daniels Geoff
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
british journal of haematology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.907
H-Index - 186
eISSN - 1365-2141
pISSN - 0007-1048
DOI - 10.1111/bjh.12275
Subject(s) - haemolytic disease , medicine , fetus , immunology , pregnancy , biology , genetics
Anti‐D (‐ RH 1) of the Rh blood group system is clinically important as it causes haemolytic transfusion reactions and haemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn. Although most people are either D+ or D−, there is a plethora of D variants, often categorized as either weak D or partial D. These two types are inadequately defined and the dichotomy is potentially misleading. DVI is the D variant most commonly associated with anti‐D production and UK guidelines recommend that patients are tested with anti‐D reagents that do not react with DVI . Weak D types 1, 2, and 3 are seldom, if ever, associated with alloanti‐D production, so a policy recommendation would be to treat patients with those D variants as D+, to preserve D− stocks, whereas patients with all other D variants would be treated as D−. All donors with D variant red cells, including DVI , should be treated as D+.