Background and objectives: In the era of gel cards, we aimed to determine the incidence of a positive direct antiglobulin test (DAT) in a population of blood donors in Serbia and to compare results with the period when a conventional tube technique was used.
Materials and methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 184,171 blood donors over 10 years (2012-2021). Positive DAT results initially were detected after positive result of the compatibility test. After a DAT had been initially performed on fresh blood samples, a control DAT was performed 6 months later.
Results: Using gel cards, we found a low incidence (0.09%) of DAT positivity among 55,254 female and 128,917 male blood donors, with no difference found in the occurrence of a positive DAT between them. Positive DAT moderately positively correlated with increasing age of blood donors, but without statistical significance. The vast majority of blood donors (98.86%) were IgG positive. All donors were in good health, did not take medication or had anaemia or haemolysis. During the period 1980-1989, when the test tube technique was used, we found 0.05% DAT-positive blood donors.
Conclusion: The incidence of positive DAT results in Serbian blood donors is higher compared with that found using the previous test tube technique, but the incidence is consistent with the findings of other studies.
Keywords: direct antiglobulin test; gel cards; tube test.
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