Blood Transfusion Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Blood Transfusion, including details on blood donation, blood types, leukemia.

Pathogen inactivation technology: cleansing the blood supply.

Klein HG

Department of Medicine and Pathology, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA. hklein@cc.nih.gov

The calculated residual infectious risk of HIV, hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) from blood transfusion is extremely low. However, the risk of bacterial contamination remains and a variety of other agents including emerging viruses, protozoa and tick-borne agents threaten blood supplies and undermine public confidence in blood safety. Traditional methods of donor screening and testing have limited ability to further reduce disease transmission and cannot prevent an emerging infectious agent from entering the blood supply. Pathogen inactivation technologies have all but eliminated the infectious risks of plasma-derived protein fractions, but as yet no technique has proved sufficiently safe and effective for traditional blood components. Half-way technologies can reduce the risk of pathogen transmission from fresh frozen plasma and cryoprecipitate. Traditional methods of mechanical removal such as washing and filtration have limited success in reducing the risk of cell-associated agents, but methods aimed at sterilizing blood have either proved toxic to the cells or to the recipients of blood components. Several promising methods that target pathogen nucleic acid have recently entered clinical testing.

Published 17 February 2005 in J Intern Med, 257(3): 224-37.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Blood Transfusion Research Today. All Rights Reserved.