Blood type testing is performed to help decrease the risk of immunological transfusion reactions in dogs and cats. Testing can also be performed in breeding cats to decrease the risk of neonatal isoerythrolysis.
Example of a Dal blood typing card. The autoagglutination saline screen is negative, as expected, while the positive control shows the expected agglutination. This patient does not have agglutination in the patient test well, indicating that the dog is negative for the Dal antigen.
Courtesy of Dr. Shauna Blois.
Example of a feline AB immunochromatographic blood type test showing a positive result for the B blood type. The line marked “C” shows a positive control reaction, indicating that the test was performed successfully.
Courtesy of Dr. Shauna Blois.
Plasma or serum from an individual with known alloantibodies can be used for slide or tube typing. Commercial antibodies can be used at reference laboratories for typing. Commercially available point-of-care typing options exist and have good agreement with laboratory methods.
Card-based typing is available for dog erythrocyte antigen (DEA) 1, 4, and 5, as well as Dal antigen of dogs, and for AB typing of cats. Lyophilized monoclonal antibody in the card wells causes agglutination to indicate a positive blood type result for a patient (see ).
Immunochromatographic membrane test kits contain a membrane embedded with the relevant monoclonal antibody and are used in dogs for detection of DEA 1, including weak DEA 1 expression, and in cats for detection of AB (see ).
For More Information
Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. Blood types. eClinPath. 2024.
Also see pet owner content regarding blood groups and blood transfusions in dogs and cats.
