Which procedure eliminated the minor crossmatch?

• A. donor antibody screen
• B. donor plasma crossmatch
• C. reverse typing
• D. AHG crossmatch

Answer: (A)

The test you’re thinking of is used to rule out antibodies in donor plasma that could react with the recipient’s red cells. The minor crossmatch checks for those donor-derived antibodies against the recipient’s antigens. If the donor unit is screened for unexpected antibodies and the screen comes back negative, there are no donor antibodies present to cause a reaction, so you can skip performing a separate minor crossmatch. In other words, a donor antibody screen acts as a safeguard: a negative result means the risk of plasma antibodies causing incompatibility is not present, making the minor crossmatch unnecessary. The other approaches don’t serve this purpose: reverse typing is about ABO testing of the recipient’s plasma against donor cells, AHG crossmatch is used for checking recipient antibodies against donor red cells (major crossmatch), and donor plasma crossmatching itself would directly test for antibodies rather than prevent the need for that test.