The integration of high-throughput testing of blood donors for cardiovascular disease risk assessment and prevention.

Background And Objectives: Some blood centers provide health screening as a public health measure and to encourage donation. The goal of the current study was to provide cardiovascular disease (CVD) screening to donors using high-throughput testing and web-based communications.

Materials And Methods: CVD risk screening was offered to donors at selected mobile drives in a large metropolitan area.

Seroprevalence of Chagas infection in the donor population.

We retrospectively calculated the prevalence and epidemiologic characteristics of Chagas infection in the New York blood donor population over three years utilizing the New York Blood Center's database of the New York metropolitan area donor population. Seventy Trypanosoma cruzi positive donors were identified from among 876,614 donors over a 3-year period, giving an adjusted prevalence of 0.0083%, with 0.

Cardiovascular disease risk assessment and prevention in blood donors.

Background: Blood centers have implemented public health initiatives, including cardiovascular disease (CVD) screening, to improve donor and community health and serve as an incentive to donate.

Study Design And Methods: CVD risk screening and counseling were performed at mobile blood drives in diverse neighborhoods. Risk factors were determined by point-of-care testing (total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, and hemoglobin A1c levels), interviews, and physical examinations (body mass index, waist circumference, and blood pressure).

ABO-mismatched platelet transfusions: strategies to mitigate patient exposure to naturally occurring hemolytic antibodies.

Clinically significant hemolysis is a rare but potentially severe complication of administering an ABO-mismatched platelet transfusion. Platelet products from Group O donors, particularly single donor platelets (SDP) are most commonly implicated in these reactions. This is due to the presence of unusually high titers of anti-A which can be found in the plasma of some Group O donors and the large plasma volume of SDPs.

Exchange transfusion for malaria and Babesia infection.

Malaria accounts for about 2 million deaths per year. Although most cases occur in children in sub-Saharian Africa, fatal infections are seen increasingly in industrialized countries. In 1992, over 900 malaria cases were reported in the United States and a third of these were caused by Plasmodium falciparum.