Blood For Transfusion Purposes Research Articles

PREVALENCE OF IRON DEPLETION IN STORED BLOOD

It is the usual practice to bleed donors and store their blood for transfusion purposes. Theaim of this work is to evaluate the depletion of serum iron levels in stored blood. Onehundred blood samples were collected from blood donors at the University of Benin Teachinghospital and analyzed for iron levels, hemoglobin concentration, packed cell volume andblood cell morphology using standard methods at day 0 (controls) 15 and day 30.The mean ?SEM of iron, hemoglobin and packed cell volume were 17.7 ? 1.01 ?mol/L, 12.9 ? 0.71g/land 39.0 ? 11.20% at day 0 which served as controls. At day 15 serum iron and packed cellvolume were 18.3 ? 2.22?mol/L and 33.20 ? 9.48% .While at day 30 there was a significantdecrease (p<0.05) in PCV, hb concentrations and serum iron. Red cell crenation wasprominent in all the slides viewed at day 15 and day 30 respectively. There are significantchanges in serum iron, PCV and Hb when blood is stored and used within the shelf life of theanticoagulant in use

Application of gamma irradiation knowledge in tissue sterilisation: inactivation of malaria parasite.

Malaria is one of the exclusion criteria used in selecting tissue donors and the absence of this information can lead to rejection of tissues for transplant. The studies on the malaria parasite have been confined to low dose attenuation of parasites in blood for transfusion purposes. There is no published information relating to the inactivation of malaria parasites with irradiation for the sterilisation of tissues. A dose-surviving parasite population following radiation was replotted using D0 value from a published paper whereby D10 value of 41Gy was obtained. Calculation of sterilisation dose for achieving SAL 10-6 of malaria parasites demonstrated the effectiveness of the sterilisation dose of 25kGy being used in tissue banking.

Knowledge and acceptance of cord blood transfusion as an alternative to adult blood transfusion by sickle cell anaemia patients.

Background: Voluntary Adult blood donor panel is low in Nigeria. Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a common chronic disease which requires regular blood transfusion. Cord blood has been shown to be physiologically suitable as an alternative to adult blood transfusion. Aim: To assess the knowledge and acceptance of cord blood transfusion as an alternative to adult blood in SCD patients. Design and methods: A descriptive study was carried out from March to May 2009. Subjects included SCD patients recruited from the university of Benin teaching hospital and the sickle cell centre in Benin City. Interviewer administered questionnaires were used to assess SCD patients' awareness and acceptance of cord blood as an alternative to adult blood for transfusion purposes. Results: A total of 125 SCD patients who completely filled and returned questionnaire were analyzed. None of the patients had knowledge of use of cord blood as an alternative for adult blood transfusion but Eighty-three percent of respondents (104/125) also had no previous knowledge of use of cord blood for stem cell transplantation. Sixty-six, (66/125) 58.8% of respondents would accept cord blood transfusion while 47.2% would not. The main reason for rejecting cord blood was found to be fear of medical complications 44/59(74.5%). Sixty-one percent of respondents were transfused 2-3 times in the preceding 12 months. The most frequent transfusion reaction observed was febrile reactions (51.5%) followed by urticaria (22.2%). Conclusion: This study has shown that majority of the respondents will accept cord blood transfusion. The main reason for rejecting cord blood transfusion was fear of medical complications. More patients will accept cord blood transfusion if adequately counseled. Key words: Adult blood transfusion, Sickle cell disease and Cord blood transfusion.

Tainted blood in Canada: An extraordinary history

Over a period of some fifty years, society’s approach to the problem of ensuring the safety of medicines has become increasingly consistent and effective. During that same period, however, the community has repeatedly struggled to create a comparable system to deal with the challenge created by the need to supply safe blood for transfusion purposes. Human blood and its derivatives cannot be dealt with in the same manner as drugs. The fact that it is a material of human origin raises specific problems, both moral and technical. In particular, views differ as to whether blood should be sourced exclusively from volunteers who participate from altruistic motives and without financial reward, or whether an individual should be able to trade his or her blood against payment; in the latter situation, there is an evident risk that some donors may be tempted to give blood when their state of health does not in fact permit it, or to conceal data pointed to the fact that their blood is likely to be unusable, e.g. because of infection or other types of disorder. Similarly, the question has been much debated as to whether blood collected free of charge for transfusion purposes should be handled by commercial concerns working for profit or should be entrusted solely to official bodies or to non-profit organizations serving an idealistic purpose. The answers to these questions have varied from one country to another. In the United States, and a number of other countries, human blood can be traded, both at the donor and processing levels; in many other countries the entire system is operated on a non-profit basis, involving the Red Cross or state institutes. Over a long period, the supply system operated relatively quietly; incidental problems relating to blood grouping and storage were dealt with without a great deal of debate. All this began to change with the increasingly evident need to eliminate the transmission of viral infection through the system. Concerns initially related to the elimination of the hepatitis virus from the supply chain, but they became much more acute with the large-scale advent of HIV/AIDS. In large processing systems, the blood of a single donor is at an early stage mixed with that from many other sources. It is therefore clear than even a single bottle of infected blood entering the system will be capable of contaminating the entire supply chain, exposing a vast number of recipients to the risk of disease. In such a situation it is not sufficient to attain a “reasonable” level of safety; the entire system must in effect be watertight if disasters are to be involved. Nowhere have the problems in this connection come to the fore more severely than in Canada. Canada had for many years maintained a compromise system. Although at one time Canada itself had some 300,000 voluntary donors, the blood that they supplied was insufficient to meet all needs. Part of the blood entering the system therefore came from commercial firms in the United States, while the national system for its purchase, storage and distribution was for more than fifty years handled by the Canadian Red Cross, subject to control by the health authorities. In principle, therefore, there was the possibility

A Hospital Is Strictly Liable in Tort for Supplying Patients with Contaminated Blood for Transfusion Purposes

A Hospital Is Strictly Liable in Tort for Supplying Patients with Contaminated Blood for Transfusion Purposes

The Freezing of Human Serum and Plasma in Medical Research Council Transfusion Bottles, Before Drying by Sublimation from the Frozen State

Humanserum was dried in this department at the outbreak of war with a view to its possible use as a stable substitute for whole blood for transfusion purposes. In the absence of any definite knowledge of dosage, the arbitrary unit of 200 c. c. was chosen, because this was approximately the amount of serum which could be obtained from a pint of clotted blood, and also because this amount of serum could conveniently be frozen before drying in 12 oz. medical-flat bottles. The technique of freezing was to place the bottles of serum on racks in a cold-room maintained at –20° C, the racks being slightly inclined from the horizontal so that the serum froze in a wedge, thus giving a reasonably large surface from which evaporation could occur during the drying process. Large amounts of human serum have been dried by sublimation from the frozen state on apparatus based on the experimental model described by Greaves & Adair (1939), after prefreezing by this simple technique.