Feto-maternal Hemorrhage (FMH)

Dear Flow-ers,

I’ve a group that would like to answer the frequently asked questions 
that are asked by clinicians in hospitals:

1. Is there a benefit to performing flow cytometry for Feto-maternal 
Hemorrhage (FMH) estimation ante-natal?
2. If so, what exclusive fetal markers are available for flow to be 
preformed ante-natal following FMH?


Right now in the laboratory they quantify peri-natal samples with 
monoclonal antibody to RhD positive fetal RBCs in Rh negative mothers 
using FCM. Ideally the MoAb would have a specificity to an epitope on 
the fetal cells and absent from the maternal cells, and would be 
targeting a cell surface antigen so it could be run with the RhD MoAb 
used at the moment to quantify Feto-maternal Hemorrhage (FMH) on a 
maternal sample.

I was looking around and looks like it’s necessary to work with flow 
cytometry in conjunction with Kleihauer-Betke Test, because you can 
underestimates massive FMH. Nevertheless, it looks like in general 
there is a good correlation between both methods. In terms of MoAb for 
Flow, i.e. Invitrogen has a kit (with three options) for flow. 

Could you help me with this? I would like to know what clinicians and 
flow people are doing for the detection of FMH. 

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Alfonso


------------------------------
 Dr. Alfonso Blanco Fernández

 Flow Cytometry Core Facilities
 UCD - Conway Institute of Biomolecular & Biomedical Research
 University College Dublin
 Belfield, Dublin 4
 IRELAND

 T: 00353(0)1 716 6836/6947