Vox Sanguinis最新文献

Background and objectives: Implementation of national haemovigilance programmes has significantly improved donor and recipient safety. Recently, India completed a decade of successful implementation of its national haemovigilance programmes. The national programme is still enrolling more blood centres. This study aimed to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of Haemovigilance Programme of India (HvPI), thereby providing valuable insights for future initiatives.

Materials and methods: The National Coordinating Centre (NCC) conducted a multi-centre, cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey among the reporting blood centres (January to April 2022). The survey consisted of three sections with a total of 27 questions focusing on the demographics of the participant blood centre as well as the impact on the recipient and donor haemovigilance. The survey was sent to 733 blood centres regularly reporting to the donor and recipient HvPI through Donor and Hemovigil Software.

Results: Total 296 responses were received (response rate of 40.4%) with maximum participation of private non-teaching hospital-based blood centres (33.8%). After their involvement in recipient HvPI, 85.7% of the respondents reported changes in their blood centre's work procedures, with the maximum improvement seen in the documentation of transfusion reactions (92.7%). Out of the 278 respondents who participated in donor HvPI, 89.9% (250) found that their blood centre's policies or work process changed as a result of their involvement in the programme.

Conclusion: In conclusion, our haemovigilance programme facilitates national collaboration for learning and sharing experiences, leading to improved policies and practices in reducing adverse reactions for both recipients and donors.

Background and objectives: Human platelet antigens (HPA) play a central role in foetal and neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (FNAIT), post-transfusion purpura and some cases of platelet therapy refractoriness. The frequency distribution of HPA had not been studied in the Greek population before we started to create a registry of HPA-typed apheresis platelet donors. The aim of this study was the determination of the frequency of various HPA in the Greek population, through the establishment of a registry of typed donors.

Materials and methods: Here, we report on the first 1000 platelet donors of Greek origin who gave informed consent and were genotyped for 12 pairs of antithetical HPA by Single Specific Primer-Polymerase Chain Reaction (SSP-PCR), including HPA-1, HPA-3, HPA-5 and HPA-15. Antigen frequencies are reported, and allele frequencies were calculated and compared with other European and non-European populations. Tested donors cover all ABO and Rhesus D antigen spectrum.

Results: Antigen and allele frequencies are very similar to other White populations. The frequency of HPA-1bb is 2.9% in our study, and the frequency of HPA-2b, HPA-4b, HPA-9b and HPA-15b is also slightly higher than in other literature reports, while the frequency of HPA-15b was found higher than that of HPA-15a.

Conclusion: We report antigen and allele frequencies for a large array of clinically significant HPA for the first time in the Greek population. Frequencies are consistent with other European populations. This registry of HPA-typed platelet donors, available to donate on demand, is an important asset for the treatment of FNAIT cases in Greece.

Background and objectives: Several studies have suggested that blood donors have lower risk of gastrointestinal and breast cancers, whereas some have indicated an increased risk of haematological cancers. We examined these associations by appropriately adjusting the 'healthy donor effect' (HDE).

Materials and methods: We examined the risk of gastrointestinal/colorectal, breast and haematological cancers in regular high-frequency whole blood (WB) donors using the Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study data linked with blood donation and other health-related data. We calculated 5-year cancer risks, risk differences and risk ratios. To mitigate HDE, we used 5-year qualification period to select the exposure groups, and applied statistical adjustments using inverse probability weighting, along with other advanced doubly robust g-methods.

Results: We identified 2867 (42.4%) as regular high-frequency and 3888 (57.6%) as low-frequency donors. The inverse probability weighted 5-year risk difference between high and low-frequency donors for gastrointestinal/colorectal cancer was 0.2% (95% CI, -0.1% to 0.5%) with a risk ratio of 1.25 (0.83-1.68). For breast cancer, the risk difference was -0.2% (-0.9% to 0.4%), with a risk ratio of 0.87 (0.48-1.26). Regarding haematological cancers, the risk difference was 0.0% (-0.3% to 0.5%) with a risk ratio of 0.97 (0.55-1.40). Our doubly robust estimators targeted minimum loss-based estimator (TMLE) and sequentially doubly robust (SDR) estimator, yielded similar results, but none of the findings were statistically significant.

Conclusion: After applying methods to mitigate the HDE, we did not find any statistically significant differences in the risk of gastrointestinal/colorectal, breast and haematological cancers between regular high-frequency and low-frequency WB donors.