Donors with repeated blood product discards for filtration problems, clots or hemolysis: Causes and follow‐up

Abstract Introduction Sanquin donor medicine department is informed when donations or their components are rejected. This can occur isolated or frequently. It is undesirable because the donations cannot be used and there may be an underlying medical cause. Based on regional approaches, a uniform procedure was developed. Methods Information about whole blood, plasma‐ plateletpheresis donations from which one or more components were rejected for filtration time (>2 h), hemolysis or clots were extracted from blood bank information system. After rejection of two successive components or donations or total ≥3 the donor is contacted. Depending on the medical history and investigation by the family doctor, the donor carrier is re‐evaluated. We looked for the causes of the discarded products and performed a survey among blood services regarding polices with discarded products. Results One or more components from 1742 of about 2.2 million successful donations (0.08%) were rejected. The highest percentage of rejection was seen in plateletpheresis (1.5%), all for clots. No underlying medical causes were found. 24 whole blood donors were found to have sickle cell trait (SCT) and were permanently deferred. The policies for follow‐up after discarded products or acceptance of SCT donors vary between the 16 blood banks. Six organizations do not follow‐up donors and seven accept SCT for blood or plasma donation. Conclusion Informing donors with repeated discarded products avoids the non‐use of donations. Causes of repeated discarded products can be found by follow‐up of donors. The results of the survey indicate a large discrepancy in policies applied worldwide.