COMPARISON BETWEEN GUANASE AND TRANSAMINASE ACTIVITY IN DONOR BLOOD

Abstract

Reacent studies show that monitoring guanase activity in transfusion blood may be useful in preventing post-transfusion non-A non-B hepatitis. We measured serum guanase activities in samples from blood donors at the Japanese Red Cross Tokyo Metropolitan Blood Center by three different methods: a 1 channel automatic (1 ch) method, a 2 channel automatic (2 ch) method and a manual method. SGPT and SGOT activities were also determined on the same samples by an automatic kind & King assay, using an Olympus ACA 6008N automatic analyzer. Both donors with high guanase activity and recipients transfused blood with high guanase activity were followed.
In low guanase activity (normal) donors, the correlation among the three guanase methods was very poor. The correlation between guanase activity and SGPT or SGOT in all blood donors was excellent. The high ganase activity donors often showed low guanase activity after 6 months. Recipients with high guanase activity blood did not always contract post-transfusion hepatitis.
The data suggest that improvements in guanase activity assays must be made. A screening test of guanase activity in transfusion blood is not deemed necessary at this time.