Principle:
Directed donations are used for dedicated components from a particular donor for a specific patient.
Policy:
- All requests for directed donations must be specifically approved by one of the Transfusion Medicine physicians.
- Indications—patient has need of a rare component type, including:
- Antibody to a high-incidence/prevalence RBC antigen (e.g. anti-PP1Pk)
- Neonatal isoimmune thrombocytopenia or other platelet antibody situation (anti-HLA or platelet-specific)
- IgA-deficient plasma
- Other requests:
- If #2 above does not apply but someone wants to donate on behalf of a particular patient, the final decision to proceed will be made by the transfusion medicine physician.
- All directed donations must be registered as such in the Medinfo Hematos IIG computer system to ensure that the proper ISBT label is generated.
- Directed donors must meet the same eligibility criteria as regular donors.
- Special conditions apply to apheresis components from a dedicated donor:
- If a directed apheresis donor passes initial donor testing and is dedicated for one particular donor, then additional plateletpheresis donations may be accepted for 30 days without further testing.
- The platelet apheresis component may be directly released without further testing if it is an emergency situation. Otherwise, we will proceed with full donor testing before release.
- Exceptions to the above policy can only be made by the Transfusion Medicine Consultants or designate; all exceptions must be documented in writing.
- All RBC and platelet components from directed donations will be irradiated before release.
Please note:
- Plateletpheresis donations may be collected twice weekly from the same donor, 48 hours apart, for a maximum of 24 times per year.
- If more than 200 ml RBC loss occurs within an 8-week period from apheresis component collection, that donor must be deferred for 8 weeks.
Reference:
Standards for Blood Banks and Transfusion Services, Current Edition, AABB, Bethesda, MD, USA