Effectiveness of predonation health and travel screening in reducing the risk of transfusion ‐transmitted infections

Early in the history of transfusion it became evident that blood can transmit infectious diseases from the donor to the recipient. Predonation screening is performed by a Donor Health Questionnaire (DHQ). The DHQ complements the blood screening programme, when it fails to detect transfusion‐transmitted infections (TTIs), or when TTIs are not covered by the blood screening programme. The DHQ is dependent on the donor understanding the items presented in the DHQ and discloses accurate information. DHQ has relatively high rates of non‐compliance. It has been suggested that donors do their own risk assessment when filling in the questionnaire. Reducing the deferral periods to some items in the DHQ has increased compliance without resulting in increased risk of TTIs. The advantage of the DHQ is the fact that it is adaptable, and can be easily expanded quickly with new emerging TTIs, however unfortunately, the questions in the DHQ are often introduced based on expert opinions rather than evidence‐based risk assessment. This may lead to unfeasible criteria with high rates of deferrals with consequently high costs for the blood centers or it might even pose a threat to maintain a sufficient blood supply. With the advances in the blood screening programme reducing the window period for serious TTIs, we here suggest that time is up to take a critical look at the DHQ, to evaluate the efficiency if the individual items, and to develop a DHQ that fits the current pressure of infecti...
Source: ISBT Science Series - Category: Hematology Authors: Tags: Congress Review Source Type: research