Screening prospective blood donors for low hemoglobin (Hb) is a well-established practice with two purposes.
1. To protect the donor’s health
2. To ascertain the quality of donated blood
The huge shortfall in blood supplies in developing countries put blood banks under pressure in their effort to meet the increasing need for blood without putting donors or recipient’s health at risk.
Dr. Sawant works at the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Center, one of the largest Blood Banks in Mumbai with over 1000 of donors per month. The center decided to change from CuSO4 to a proven, safe, fast and reliable Point of Care method and decided on the HemoCue Hb system.
In a study performed at the center on 3210 donors deferred with the CuSO4 method Dr. Sawant investigated if retesting deferred donor with the HemoCue Hb method would help lower deferral rates and found that about 30% of deferred donors could be accepted back for donation.
Considering the vast amount of donations needed in developing countries every unnecessary deferral of donors should be avoided
Learn more about HemoCue Hb testing in Blood banks
