by Laurie J. Sutor, MD, MBA Area hospitals and the community blood center have become aware of new sections of the Texas Administrative Code and the Health and Safety Code that, in their standard-setting for maternal care for the state, are having significant effects on blood banks. The legislation was first passed in 2013 and
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by Geeta Paranjape, MD Background The reported rates of septic transfusion reactions from platelets vary from 1/100,000 by passive surveillance to 1/10,000 by active surveillance when testing with primary culture alone. Surveillance data on platelets stored up to five days have shown that the majority of platelet transfusion-related septic reactions and associated fatalities have occurred with
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by Laurie J Sutor, MD, MBA When to transfuse. Consensus recommendations support transfusion for the prevention and treatment of stroke in high-risk patients. There is also some evidence that transfusion is helpful in patients to treat acute chest syndrome and for splenic sequestration with anemia. However, transfusion has not shown to be helpful routinely for treatment
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by William Crews, MD Many factors put demands on platelet availability in our facility and our community. These include the need for quality control and bacterial testing, the short shelf life, an increase in utilization over recent years, and loss of donors with new regulations. For all these reasons we encourage transfusion services and transfusing
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by Pamela L. Malvern, BSN, RN, CNN and Victoria Hall, BSN, RN Sickle cell disease is the most common indication when red cell exchange is carried out by Carter BloodCare clinical apheresis staff. The procedure can be elective for those sickle cell disease patients whose clinical circumstances are best managed by performing exchange every six to
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by William Crews, MD Cryoprecipitated Antihemophilic Factor is more commonly known as cryoprecipitate, or simply cryo. Cryoprecipitate can only be made from Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP), which has been removed from whole blood and frozen within eight hours of being collected. The FFP is slowly thawed between 1 and 6C. This results in a supernatant that
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by Laurie J. Sutor, MD, MBA, VP of Medical and Technical Services Irradiation of blood is done to prevent graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in susceptible patients getting transfusion. Current practice in U.S. blood banks tends to use one of two types of dedicated blood component irradiators: the traditional cesium source irradiator which emits gamma rays, or
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Katherine Kay Blevens chooses to celebrate the purest joys in her life – husband, children and grandchildren, despite being diagnosed with sickle cell disease as a baby. When she was a teenager, she was told that she would not live past 21. The reason why sickle cell disease carries such a grim prognosis is because
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Carter BloodCare’s Cellular Therapy Laboratory has been entrusted to assist with the initial collection, cryopreservation, preparation for patient infusion and administration of stem cell products. This video takes a behind-the-scenes look at the process.