People might want to know their blood type for various
medical reasons or just to learn more about their bodies. Knowing your blood
type is beneficial in many ways, especially during medical emergencies,
pregnancy, and predicting disease risk. I learned of my blood type through
an agglutination test I did for a physiology class. It was fascinating, but not
my favorite thing to do. This is because I had to prick myself. If you hate
needles and getting your fingers pricked, needle-free blood typing using
infrared light may be something you can look forward to in the near future.
The traditional method of blood typing is an invasive
process that involves a needle inserting into a vein in the arm to obtain the
blood sample. Study shows that needle pain increases anxiety and shy away
people from getting their blood drawn. This leads to the innovation of devices
that claim to be quick and “painless”. Many devices use spring-loaded lancet to
obtain the blood sample through pricking a finger. This method does not include
needles, however, is still invasive and can be quite painful.
Researchers found that red blood cells of different blood
types reflect light differently. Zainab, a participant in the Intel
International Science and Engineering Fair developed a method of using infrared
light to identify blood type. Zainab used three different wavelengths of
infrared light to shine through samples of blood from 30 people. In order to
make sense of the light, she used sensors to measure reflected light and
measured how much of the wavelength of light was absorbed as it passed through
the blood. In another test, angle of the light scattered by red blood cells was
also measured. She found that red blood cells with fewer antigens had less
light absorbed and less light scattered. As a result, blood type O scattered
light the least because it has no A or B antigens. Blood type AB scattered
light the most because it has both antigens A and B.
This is an interesting finding that has a potential for
further research. Zainab’s technique still requires a blood sample through
needles or pricking. However, a device that allows proper wavelength of light
to pass through the skin and bounce off of blood can be engineered in the
future based off of Zainab’s research. Such device can change the way we do
blood typing. For example, nurses can simply shine a light into your skin and
know which blood transfusion is right for you. Very simple and painless! Of
course, it may not be that simple. Short and long term effects are unknown, and
infrared light can have harmful effects.
Narayanan, S., Galloway, L., Nonoyama, A., & Leparc,
G.F. (2002). UV-visible
spectrophotometric approach to blood typing II: phenotyping of subtype A2 and weak D and whole blood analysis. Transfusion, 42(5), 619-626. doi: 10.1046/j.1537-2995.2002.00090.x
Narayanan,
S., Orton, S., Leparc, G.F., Garcia-Rubio, L.H., & Potter, R.L. (1999).
Ultraviolet and visible light spectrophotometric approach to blood typing:
objective analysis by agglutination index. Transfusion,
39(10), 1051-1059. doi: 10.1046/j.1537-2995.1999.39101051.x
Perkins, D. (2017). Needle-free blood typing may be on the
way. ScienceNews. Retrieved from https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/needle-free-blood-typing-may-be-way
If this were to be converted into a machine that could be used while the blood is still in the body and approved for medical usage, that would be a huge advancement in particularly trauma treatment. Often, patients are brought in with no record of their blood type (for example, a young person who hasn't been to the hospital before and has no available medical record.) They need to be blood typed before being given blood (or they'll be given O type, which is often in short supply for exactly this reason). The coag test, though among the faster of the medical lab tests, is still slow in a situation where someone is losing so much blood that they need a transfusion. If a rapid test method like this was developed, it would go a long way towards improving definitive trauma care in the hospital.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of a non invasive blood typing technique is very intriguing. The fact that different blood antigens reflect light differently is fascinating. It makes sense that Blood type AB would reflect more light than type O due to the amount of antigen’s present. I also agree with the previous comment that this technology may have the possibility to decrease the time it takes to determine a patient’s blood type, and therefore, increasing the efficiency and time it takes for blood transfusions in critical patients.
ReplyDeleteHowever, while reading this article, I could not help but think how does the light distinguish between positive blood types and negative blood types? Although I could not find a study to answer question, it may be possible that one out of the three infrared light wavelengths used to determine blood type might have the role for determining whether the Rh protein (the determining factor of positive or negative blood types) is present or absent on a person’s red blood cells. If it is not the case that one of the preliminary infrared wavelengths does not determine Rh absence or presence, it could be beneficial to look into wavelengths that would effectively reflect off of this particular protein.
If this device detects changes in light refraction relatively, as opposed for certain known values for each blood type, I wonder if the results could be altered by diseases like malaria or disorders like sickle-cell anemia that change the shape of the platelet. In theory, the difference in shape of the cell in both cases would likely also change the refraction ratio and could result in assigning someone the wrong blood type. If this could be refined to known range values per blood type it could be that the differing refraction of differently shaped cells could actually be used as a quick diagnosis of malaria or sickle cell anemia. Finch et al. mention that sickle cells tend to aggregate in rows and have unique filamentation detectable by light refraction, so it is possible that this could be used to diagnose something like that. Additionally, malaria parasites found in blood cells have already been detected by the way in which they scatter light, as used by Mauer et al. So, while these alterations to blood cells might make it difficult to accurately determine blood types while in the qualitative - as opposed to quantitative - stage of this technology, it could be further used to determine if an individual has sickle cell anemia or malaria.
ReplyDeleteBiological Sciences: Cell Biology:
J. T. Finch, M. F. Perutz, J. F. Bertles, and Johanna Döbler
Structure of Sickled Erythrocytes and of Sickle-Cell Hemoglobin Fibers
PNAS 1973 70 (3) 718-722; doi:10.1073/pnas.70.3.718
Mauer, J., Peltomaki, M., Poblete, S., Gompper, G., & Fedosov, D. A. (2017). Static and dynamic light scattering by red blood cells: A numerical study. PLoS ONE, 12(5), e0176799. Retrieved from http://dml.regis.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.dml.regis.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=regis&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA491119655&asid=4509ae2eb8370af8568503866dc58892
That is so interesting and I cannot wait until they do more research and make needle-less blood typing a clinical procedure. Especially if they can broaden the antigens that the light reflections can detect in an accurate manner, it would be very useful. In the hospital, we have a lot of older patients with very delicate skin and seem to be less tolerable of the pain of trying to find a vein or artery and drawing up blood for various tests, like blood typing. Needles tend to make some patients tense and associate negative feelings with hospitals and the care provided. Despite all the great questions and limitations the previous bloggers brought up, at least with the start of researching needle-less blood typing, it could go a long way to reduce patient anxiety and help promote cooperation and participation between health care providers and patients. Hopefully, we can expand this research and discover less invasive ways to accurately perform other blood lab tests.
ReplyDeleteI think that a device like this could be incredibly valuable in situation of major traumas when a patient needs blood ASAP to re-profuse tissue after major fluid loss. It would save time in cross-matching the blood type, and save valuable O- (the universal blood type) for those who require only that type (others with O- blood). We already have the technology to shine light through the skin to see some properties of blood, like hemoglobin saturation so this innovation may not be so far fetched as it may sound. If this information could be found through something like a pulse oximetry device, a patient could be rolled into the ER, already typed and matched and blood could already be hanging for him to be infused with. This could greatly reduce the time a patient has to wait for precious blood to raise their blood pressure and allow oxygen back into their cells after major blood loss
ReplyDelete