Muhammad Tariq Hamid Rahmani, Maqsood Ahmad, Muhammad Saeed, Shahida Hussain, Aamir Hanif, Nadia Rashid.
Determination of Weak "D" Antigen among Rhesus Negative Pakistani Blood Donors.
Ann Pak Inst Med Sci Jan ;12(3):131-5.

Objective: Determination of weak “D” antigen, to highlight the importance of “Du Testing” among the Rhesus-negative blood donors. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration: Study was conducted at department of Hematology, Allama Iqbal Medical College (AIMC), Lahore, during the period of January 2013 and December 2015. Materials & Methods: Five different tertiary care and four secondary care hospitals of Lahore and six different institutes/universities including individuals visiting to blood banks for determination of their blood groups were included in study. Two ml of blood sample was collected in EDTA-containing vial and analyzed for determination of ABO/Rhesus (Rh) typing; all Rh-negative samples were further processed for the Du Testing according to standard protocol and commercially available monoclonal antibody. Results: Out of total 55,874 participants only 8.0% (n = 4,454) were Rh-negative. Among these Rh-negative samples, 99.0% (n = 4,410) samples were negative even after "Du Testing". Only 0.98% (n = 44) were weak "D" positive, in Rh-negative samples. Conclusion: every Rh-negative individual should be processed for the detection of Weak "D" antigen by "Du Testing" as it may not be detected by immediate spin tube method.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com