Essential guide to blood groups

This book is a pocket sized guide which provides essential information on human blood group systems. It provides the basic knowledge of blood groups needed by all those working in the immunohaematology or blood bank laboratories. The book comprises an introduction to blood groups, followed by chapters on techniques, information on various blood groups, antibodies, quality assurance in immunohaematology and their clinical significance. It concludes with a chapter on troubleshooting in the laboratory which can help in resolving commonly encountered problems. One of the interesting features of the book is addition of FAQs and recommended websites / references for further reading at the end. The chapter on FAQs comprises basic and common questions on red cell serology with their respective answers. The text is easy to understand as it is supplemented with numerous schematic figures and tables, and detailed reference lists. Understandably it is difficult to incorporate details of various techniques used in red cell serology, however, it would have been appropriate to at least mention the names of commonly used methods with their brief principles in chapter 2.

Chapters 3 and 4 describe in detail about the inheritance, biochemistry, serology and clinical aspects of the ABO and Rh blood group systems, respectively. Chapter 5 provides concise information about other important blood group systems including Kell, Kidd, Duffy, Lewis, Diego, etc. Though, information on blood groups and disease association is included, it would have been better if a table for the same had also been added.

Chapter 8 describes quality assurance in immunohaematology. Here the authors could have added a table on applicable standards for test parameters of routinely used reagents / antisera in red cell serology to make it more informative. Although authors have included a separate chapter (chapter 7) on molecular methods for blood grouping, it would have been interesting if more information was added on this interesting subject. Similarly, applications of microarray in red cell serology should have also been included in this chapter.

Overall this book will be valuable for undergraduate medical laboratory students, postgraduate students in transfusion medicine and medical practitioners training to specialise in blood banking. As a pocket edition, it will also be a useful addition to other publications on blood groups for quick access to information in red cell immunohaematology laboratories.