From Central Office
Vox Sanguinis highlights
Selection of Recently Published Articles
Jennie Haw, Terrie Butler-Foster, Benjamin Murray, Don Lapierre, Jesse Bosse, Jack Edwards, Şansal Gümüşpala, Catherine Jenkins, Aaron Devor
Article Highlights:
- Results indicate that a two-step approach (i.e., asking donors their gender and sex assigned at birth [SAAB]) for all donors is not recommended unless it is imperative that the blood operator know both a donor's gender and SAAB to ensure donor and / or recipient safety.
- Results indicate that gender options should be expanded beyond binary options of woman/female and man/male if blood operators must know a donor's gender.
- Additional research and evidence synthesis should be conducted to determine how best to apply donor safety measures for nonbinary donors.
Ana Isabel Pérez-Aliaga, Irene Ayerra, Javier Sánchez-Guillén, F. Javier López, Fernando Puente, Alfonso Aranda, José María Domingo, Carmen Garcés
Article Highlights:
- In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for platelet concentrates and a shortage of plasma for the production of plasma-derived medicines in some countries.
- Automation contributes to improving the productivity, efficiency and quality of blood components.
- The incorporation of mathematical algorithms can help address the challenging task of managing blood components production.
Helen M. Faddy, Carla Osiowy, Brian Custer, Michael Busch, Susan L. Stramer, Opeyemi Adesina, Thijs van de Laar, Wai-Chiu Tsoi, Claire Styles, Phil Kiely et al
Article Highlights:
- Over the past decade, there has been increased adoption of nucleic acid amplification testing (NAT) to screen donations for transfusion-transmitted viruses.
- Globally, over 3100 NAT-positive donations were detected as NAT yield or solely by NAT in 2019 and over 22,000 since the introduction of NAT.
- NAT contributes to improving global blood safety.
Tina S. Ipe, Yvette C. Tanhehco, Garrett S. Booth, Brian D. Adkins
Article Highlights:
- Among transfusion medicine physicians, women had lower bibliometric scores in the first 3 years after passing the subspecialty fellowship examination compared to men.
- Similarly to other medical specialties, fewer women physicians in blood banking/transfusion medicine (BBTM) were attributed as first authors.
- Further studies into whether these disparities in early career academic productivity hinder academic promotion and career advancement of women physicians in BBTM are warranted.
Mei San Tang, Hua Shan
Article Highlights:
- Gene therapy is potentially a curative treatment for sickle cell disease.
- Early findings show lower occurrence of vaso-occlusive crisis and reduced haemolysis, although longer follow-up is still necessary to evaluate adverse effects.
- The cost of gene therapy will be a significant barrier to its accessibility.
Olga Mykhailova, Mackenzie Brandon-Coatham, Celina Phan, Mahsa Yazdanbakhsh, Carly Olafson, Qi-Long Yi, Tamir Kanias, Jason P. Acker
Article Highlights:
- Red blood cell (RBC) heterogeneity, as defined by differences in cellular density and biological age, joins donor characteristics as a main contributor to RBC storage lesions.
- Biologically old RBCs from teenage males are smaller, possess an increased amount of haemoglobin and more readily haemolyse in the presence of oxidative stress.
- The observed decrease in the quality of red cell products from teen male donors over the entirety of storage is attributable to the increased proportion of biologically old RBCs in these red cell units.
John T. Blake, Kathy Ganz, Matthew Seftel, David Allan
Article Highlights:
- Using dynamic registry simulation, we studied the impact of donor recruitment effort within ethnic groups in the Canadian Blood Services Stem Cell Registry.
- Recruiting more non-White donors increases the number of matches to non-White donors overall but reduces the number of matches for White patients from Canadian donors.
- Canadian patients will continue to need to draw stem cells for haematopoietic cell transplantation from international sources.
