Objectives: We hypothesized that the blood donors most frequently involved
in complications would induce more and severe immunologic transfusion
complications compared to other donors, i.e. potentially “dangerous”. Secondary
aims were differences in demographic variables.
Background: Donor-related mechanisms may contribute to allogeneic
blood transfusion complications and may represent a dangerous treatment
adverse event.
Materials and Methods: By analyzing transfusion data from the Capital
Region of Denmark from January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2017; 2,574,646
blood transfusions and 9,779 transfusion complications from 194,432 blood
donors were included in our dataset. We divided donors into three groups
based on the number of complications and complication frequency (potentially
“dangerous” vs. two differently defined control groups i.e. control 1 and control
2), and compared the nature of transfusion complications and demographic
variables by statistical analysis.
Results: There were no differences in the proportion of complication
types between the potentially “dangerous” donors and control donors, and no
difference in the proportion of complications from RBCs, plasma or platelets
according to ABO and RhD blood types. However, more potentially “dangerous”
donors were female and had ABO blood type B compared to control donors
(p<0.001 and p<0.01, respectively). The potentially “dangerous” donors were
younger compared to control donors (40.36 years vs. 45.24 years and 42.84
years, p<0.001).
Conclusion: The potentially “dangerous” did not display more/severe
immunologic transfusion complications compared to control donors. However,
they differed in regards to gender, age and blood type. Further research
regarding the differences in complication frequency per donor and demographic
variety is warranted.