Matching Blood Types for Safe Transfusion

Blood transfusion is a medical treatment used to restore blood volume after major blood loss from an accident or a medical procedure. It works by taking blood from a suitable donor and giving it to a recipient. Safe transfusion depends on matching blood types and checking for immune compatibility.

Consider a patient with blood type A with antigen-A on their red blood cells. Naturally, this patient’s blood has no antibodies against antigen A.

If this patient is injected with blood of type B, their immune system will detect the antigen-B in the incoming blood as foreign, and produce antibodies against it, leading to the rejection of ...