Your health care provider or a technician will take a small sample of blood from your arm. The blood is sent to a lab where the following tests are performed:
ABO Blood Type
First, a simple blood test is performed to determine the blood type of the donor and recipient. Here’s how your blood type should be compatible with your potential donor’s blood type:
- If you are blood type A, your donor should have blood type A or O.
- If you are blood type B, your donor should have blood type B or O.
- If you are blood type O, the donor must have blood type O. (A person with blood type O is called a universal donor because he or she can donate to someone of all blood types.)
- If you have blood type AB (universal acceptor), your donor can have blood type AB, A, B or O.
Tissue Typing
Tissue typing is a series of blood tests that evaluate the compatibility or closeness of tissue between the organ donor and recipient. From your blood samples, the tissue typing lab can identify and compare information about your antigens (the “markers” in cells that stimulate antibody production) so they can match a donor lung to you.
All donors are carefully screened to prevent any transmissible diseases or other complications.
Other Blood Tests
In the laboratory, an additional series of tests will be performed to detect certain substances in your blood and to evaluate your general health. These blood tests may include:
- CEA
- CMV IgM
- CRP
- Hepatitis
- HIV
- RPR
- Skin tests for infection
- TSH
- Varicella
- Metabolic panel
- CMV igG
- EBV
- Herpes
- Humoral immune panel
- Syphilis
- Toxoplasmosis
- WSR
