Successful Identification of Anti-f Alloantibody in a Non-transfused Male Patient Employing ID-Micro Typing System Gel Cards®

Anti-f alloantibody is produced by exposure to the f (ce) antigen on red blood cells (RBCs), which is a compound antigen of the Rhesus (Rh) blood group, expressed when both c and e antigens are present in the same haplotype (in cis). Although anti-f alloantibody was first discovered in 1953 and it has rarely been detected, the results of its detection were not reported as images in previous studies. We report a case of anti-f alloantibody in a Japanese male patient without a history of blood transfusion, whose anti-f alloantibody was successfully identified using a gel microcolumn assay (GMA). Furthermore, we reviewed the transfusion records between January 2002 and December 2010 and found that a total of 799 (1.1%) among 73,636 blood specimens were positive for irregular RBC antibody, of which anti-f alloantibody was only observed in one patient. The present case report focuses on the usefulness of GMA to preserve the results of detecting alloantibodies as images.