The development of a national standardized approach for the enumeration of residual leucocytes in blood components.

Background And Objectives: The UK Blood Transfusion Services implemented universal leucocyte depletion of the blood supply in November 1999. To provide statistical process monitoring of these processes, automated methods were introduced to count residual leucocytes (white blood cells) in blood components.

Materials And Methods: Initially in the National Blood Service (NBS) England, protocols were standardized on the use of LeucoCount reagents with either Becton-Dickinson or Beckman Coulter flow cytometers.

Blood component use in critically ill patients.

This prospective observational study was conducted to assess the current transfusion practice in critically ill patients. One thousand two hundred and forty-seven consecutive critically ill patients admitted between February 1999 and October 1999 were included in the study. Overall 666 (53%) patients were administered red cells.

Effectiveness of a protocol to improve transfusion practice in knee replacement surgery.

Background And Objectives: The available guidelines on red cell transfusion are not clearly defined and therefore have had only a modest impact on transfusion practice. The aims of this study were to assess the rate of compliance with a transfusion algorithm and its effect on transfusion practice.

Materials And Methods: A prospective observational study was carried out on 101 patients who underwent primary elective total knee replacement surgery.

Bruising following blood donation, its management and the response and subsequent return rates of affected donors.

A study was undertaken to determine the incidence of bruising among blood donors and to analyse their response to the management of this complication. A total of 52 510 donors were bled at 476 consecutive donor sessions held by the Brentwood Centre during a 4-month period. Of these, 344 donors (0.

Current position on preparation and quality of leucodepleted platelet concentrates for clinical use.

Double dose leucodepleted PC without filtration is considered to be the most cost-effective way of preparing leucodepleted PC in a reasonable time. The procedure lends itself to a multicomponent system and production of hyperconcentrate and dry platelets, with < 10-15 ml plasma in final product and viral inactivation without considerable loss of in vitro platelet functions. Platelet concentrates obtained by various procedures are highly heterogeneous, even if a standard protocol is used for the preparation.

Three cases of platelet alloimmunisation associated with the presence of a novel platelet-specific antibody.

Background And Objectives: In three cases of platelet alloimmunisation, a platelet-specific alloantibody was detected which could not be classified within the known human platelet alloantigen or HLA systems. The first case was of a family in which two siblings suffered neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia at birth. In the second case, the newborn was suffering from phocomelia with hypoplastic thrombocytopenia.