Evaluation of the Ph. Eur. anti-A and anti-B assay on a pipetting robot in combination with a camera guided reading mode.

The main objective of this study was the standardization of the direct anti-A, anti-B haemagglutination assay for immunoglobulin products in microtitre plates and gelcards by automation on a liquid handling robot. In addition, the evaluation of the pipetted microtitre plates with a computer-controlled camera was investigated and these results were related to titres from visual live reading. The titres obtained with the automated and the manual assay in microtitre plates and gelcards were compared. They were in excellent agreement: the titres of samples processed with the automated method varied maximally one titre step relative to the median titres of the same sample analysed with the manual method. The implementation of a camera guided test plate reading further increased the repeatability of the reported titres. In summary, the automated haemagglutination assay combined with a camera improved the consistency plus the traceability of the results and reduced the required hands-on time.