Red Cell Agglutinability affected by Disease

Abstract

Moskowitz and Carb¹, studying the effects of formalin on red cells, noted that formalin “was capable of completely inhibiting the agglutinability of red cells by antisera without destroying the antigens”. They also directed attention to a number of papers recently published describing red cells of type A, which are only weakly agglutinated, or not agglutinated, by anti-A sera, and it appears that the agglutinability of the red cells can be modified in a number of different ways, both by disease and by genetic effects. In a case described by Weiner et al.², for example, it was considered that modifying genes were responsible for this. The most interesting case, however, was that described by van Loghem et al.³, who thought it “might be possible that the blood group of the patient had changed in the course of his disease”.