If a patient has a negative autocontrol, what does this indicate about potential autoantibodies?

A negative autocontrol indicates that the patient’s serum does not react with their own red blood cells, suggesting that there are no clinically significant autoantibodies present that would cause hemolysis or agglutination under normal testing conditions. This is important because autoantibodies typically would cause a positive autocontrol if they were active against the patient’s own cells. As a result, a negative autocontrol effectively rules out the presence of such autoantibodies, indicating that any positive reactions seen in the indirect Coombs test with donor cells are likely due to alloantibodies rather than autoantibodies. This information helps guide further testing and interpretation of results in the broader context of transfusion medicine and serology.