Assessment of a gel column technique for feline blood typing

Blood typing is an essential tool in clinical feline practice to prevent serious transfusion and neonatal isoerythrolysis reactions. An AB blood group system has been recognized in cats. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of a currently available column gel agglutination technique for feline blood group typing. Each sample was blood typed in parallel using both a commercial column gel agglutination technique for feline blood group typing (ID Gel-Test Micro Typing System, Diamed) and an agglutination assay card method (RapidVet-H feline, Agrolabo). If there were discrepancies between the results obtained from the two methods, blood type was confirmed with a back-typing hemoagglutination test. The gel agglutination technique was easy to perform, reproducible, and provided semiquantitative, clear and stable results. We obtained concordant results with the card method and the column gel agglutination technique for feline blood group typing with the exception of type AB cats. In type AB cats, the gel agglutination technique was more sensitive than the agglutination on card method that tended to mis-type AB cats as B.