Blood transfusion

Blood transfusion is the taking of blood or blood-based products from one individual and inserting them into the circulatory system of another. It can be considered a form of organ transplant. Blood transfusions may treat medical conditions, such as massive blood loss due to trauma, surgery, shock and where the red cell producing mechanism (or some other normal and essential component) fails (see blood diseases).

Contraindications

The contraindications to a blood donor include:

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• previous malaria or hepatitis.
• history of drug abuse
• donors who have received human pituitary hormone.
• donors with high risk sexual behaviour
• donors who have previously been transfused (depending on geographic location)

Sometimes only parts of the blood are taken as a donation. Blood is made up mostly of plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Plasma and platelets can be donated separately in a process called ~apherisis. Blood is usually separated into components after being donated to make the most use of it. Donation of whole blood is generally reserved for treating young children and remote areas where the hospital summons donors when it needs them. Resulting blood component products also include albumin protein used to treat burns, clotting factor concentrates used to treat hemophilia, cryoprecipitate, fibrinogen concentrate, and immunoglobulin antibodies for immunological disorders.

Related Topics:
Plasma - Red blood cells - White blood cells - Platelets - Albumin - Protein - Hemophilia - Cryoprecipitate - Fibrinogen concentrate - Immunoglobulin - Antibodies

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Donation of whole blood eliminates transfusion-related risk of illness for the blood donor, aside from the minuscule chance of infection or perhaps of localized injury to the donor site. While there is a theoretical risk to the donor when they donate plasma and have red cells reinfused, this risk is eliminated by proper sterilization procedures. However, this caused public health disasters in China where this practice was often unregulated. Modern, well-run blood plasma collection centers are completely safe. In the United States and other developed countries, they are maintained by pharmaceutical companies using paid donors.

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Donations are usually anonymous to the recipient, but products in a blood bank are always individually traceable through the whole cycle of donation, testing, separation into components, storage, administration to the recipient. This enables management and investigation of any suspected transfusion related disease transmission.

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