In transfusion medicine, blood typing is an integral part of pretransfusion testing. The objective of the current study was the clinical evaluation of an automated canine cartridge dog erythrocyte antigen (DEA) 1.1 blood-typing method (QuickVet/RapidVet) and comparison of the results with a gel column- based method (ID-Gel Test Canine DEA 1.1). Ethylenediamine tetra-acetic acid- anticoagulated blood samples from 11 healthy and 85 sick dogs were available for typing. Before blood typing, all samples were tested for agglutination and hemolysis. All samples were tested once or multiple times with both methods according to the manufacturer's guidelines. With the gel method, 53 dogs tested DEA 1.1 positive and 42 dogs DEA 1.1 negative; blood typing was not possible due to erythrocyte autoagglutination in 1 dog. With the cartridge test, 53 samples tested DEA 1.1 positive, 34 samples tested DEA 1.1 negative, and 6 results were inconclusive (3 samples were not included due to autoagglutination or severe hemolysis). Without taking the inconclusive samples into account, the agreement between both methods was 96.5%. The sensitivity and specificity for samples that were definitively typed by both methods were 100% and 91.9%, respectively. The cartridge test was suitable for in-clinic canine DEA 1.1 blood typing, although some discrepancies compared to the gel method existed. The cartridge test is software-directed, is easy to use, and does not require user interpretation, but preanalytical guidelines (sample evaluation for agglutination and hemolysis) have to be followed. For inconclusive results, an alternate blood-typing method should be performed.
