Centrifrugal Microfluidic Device For Rapid Blood Typing

Abstract: Blood transfusions are vital in clinical settings, especially for neonates and critically ill patients. Traditional blood typing methods require significant blood volumes, posing challenges for these vulnerable populations who often cannot provide large samples. These methods can be time-consuming and may lack the precision needed for comprehensive compatibility testing, particularly in complex cases involving multiple antibodies or rare antigens. The current techniques, while reliable for routine use, often fall short in scenarios such as in patients who have previously received transfusions or neonates requiring transfusions, where precise and comprehensive blood typing is crucial. Moreover, difficulties for neonatal patients include blood volume limitations, immunological variables, and the need for ABO compatibility due to maternal antibodies, which necessitate the use of ABO-compatible blood to avoid haemolytic reactions. This situation underscores the pressing need for a device capable of rapid, accurate, and comprehensive blood typing with minimal sample volume.

This work aims to develop a microfluidic platform, specifically a centrifugal lab-on-a-disc (LoaD), capable of processing approximately 300μL blood samples. This platform can aliquot and screen the blood against various antigens and antibodies to determine compatibility. The microfluidic disc employs centrifugation to process and move whole blood through microfluidic channels in a controlled manner, ensuring precise sample aliquoting into separate chambers. Each chamber is pre-loaded with different antigens and antibodies, allowing for comprehensive compatibility testing. The device includes dissolvable film tabs that facilitate the automated aliquoting of the sample and the execution of the bioassay used for blood matching. This integration allows for precise timing and control of the bioassay, ensuring the whole blood is only introduced at the optimal point of the assay sequence. By incorporating image analysis, the device can assess blood reactivity and cross-match results with donor blood, enhancing specificity and safety. The microfluidic design ensures consistent assay conditions across all chambers, reducing the potential for human error and improving the reliability and reproducibility of the results. This innovative approach simplifies the blood typing process to a single pipetting step, followed by centrifugation, making it highly efficient and user-friendly. Healthcare will be significantly impacted by the promise of combining several laboratory operations onto a single integrated platform, particularly in environments with limited resources.

This microfluidic approach represents a significant advancement in neonatal transfusion management. By reducing the required blood sample volume to sub-milliliter quantities and ensuring reliable, reproducible results, the platform addresses the limitations of traditional blood typing methods. It offers a streamlined, precise approach for blood compatibility testing, significantly enhancing safety and efficiency in clinical transfusions. The LoaD design, with its automated sample aliquoting and bioassay processes, provides a robust solution for handling complex cases involving multiple antibodies or rare antigens. This development promises improved patient outcomes by ensuring more accurate and comprehensive blood typing, particularly for neonates and patients with complex antibody profiles. Ultimately, this innovative platform contributes to better healthcare delivery and patient care in critical settings, making it a valuable tool for modern clinical practice.