Blood Types

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Mar 30, 2006

i think that when you are talking about blood groups a, b, ab and o you need to refer to them as just that. so, type a is just that, a; type b is just plain old b; and, so on. you don't need to make any references to their rh status unless it is necessary to the discussion.

i've listed some links on blood transfusion and blood grouping in case any of you that have been following this link are interested.

http://medstat.med.utah.edu/webpath/tutorial/bldbank/bldbank.html - tutorial on blood banking and blood transfusion. includes discussion on compatibility, crossmatching and transfusion reactions

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/biologypages/b/bloodgroups.html - basic review of abo blood groups and the rh system from kimball's biology pages, an online biology textbook which you can access at http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/biologypages/

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/biologypages/b/blood.html - a basic review about blood, it's functions and composition from kimball's biology pages

lifeLONGstudent · Mar 31, 2006

So where was I wrong? You added a lot of information, for which I thank you, but didn't correct anything I said.
"Everyone has an Rh (Rhesus) Factor, and has positive or negative after their blood type"
You only have the Rh factor if you have the D antigen. Everyone should be designated as Rh positive or Rh negative, but not everyone has a Rh factor.
I think I was too technical when I read your response. I know what you meant. Stress will do that to me....4 months, 14 days until graduation.

SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN · Mar 31, 2006

Gotcha. Yeah, what I meant was we are all positive or negative for the Rh factor.

Thanks. I was quite kerflummled.

ICRN2008, BSN, RN · Mar 31, 2006

Sue is not 100% correct. Rh is based on an antigen on the red cell, called the D antigen. If this D antigen is present, it reacts positively with ANTI-D during the ABO/RH test performed in the bloodbank. If the antigen is not present on the RBC membrane, then the cell is typed Rh negative. Also, there are many other antigens in the Rh system like C (big C), c (little c), E (big E), and e (little e). Your patient can have an antibody to ANY antigen and this would be caught during the antibody screen, hence why you order a type and screen.
There are only 4 blood types (A, B, AB, O), but there are hundreds of antigens on the red cells. Rh is only one of those antigen systems. There are times when we only call a blood product by its ABO group - example, FFP and cryo are only called group A because there are no red cells present in them (and again, the D antigen that determines your Rh factor is carried on the RBC). If you are talking about RBCs, you need to include the ABO and Rh.
LifeLONGstudent
a former blood bank technologist.

Excellent explanation :)

BSNDec06, another medical technologist

Bumashes, MSN, APRN, NP · Apr 19, 2006

You are correct. O+ means you have O with Rh. O- means you don't posses Rh. Just to confuse you a little more, did you know there are actually many other different blood types? I learned that this semester in A&P II. I won't go into it, though. It's quite lengthy. Just suffice it to say that the ABO and Rh + / - are the most important factors for transfusions and such. The other "types" just have additional info tacked on after the + / - sign. Okay, enough of this; I need sleep.

In case you're going to complain because I said there are more than the traditional 4 blood types, what I'm refering to are the many antigen systems. My instructor said that depending on where you're at, they can consider the many antigen system combos to be the blood types instead of just ABO. Or maybe that's just the way our wonderful MS educational system works.