Blood donation and anemia

Karen L. Armstrong

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Canadian Blood Services mitigating step to anemia in blood donors
Chantale A Pambrun

Published on: 12 October 2016

Published on: (12 October 2016)
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Canadian Blood Services mitigating step to anemia in blood donors
Chantale A Pambrun, Physician
Other Contributors:
Thanks to Dr. K .Armstrong for her Blood donation and anemia article in the September issue of Canadian Family Physician. Her article brings a very important issue to light for the small subset of voluntary blood donors who are supplying Canadian patients with lifesaving blood components. As physicians working at Canadian Blood Services (CBS), we wanted to notify practitioners of the steps that are being taken to mitiga...
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Thanks to Dr. K .Armstrong for her Blood donation and anemia article in the September issue of Canadian Family Physician. Her article brings a very important issue to light for the small subset of voluntary blood donors who are supplying Canadian patients with lifesaving blood components. As physicians working at Canadian Blood Services (CBS), we wanted to notify practitioners of the steps that are being taken to mitigate the risk of iron deficiency in our donors.
Changes are coming to the whole blood interdonation interval for women. The current minimum 56 day period between donations is being extended to 84 days. With this change, women will only be able to donate four times per year. The increase in the inter-donation period will allow female donors more time to replenish their iron stores with a continued iron rich diet and iron supplementation. The iron deficiency risk is also being addressed in our male donors with an increase requirement in the pre -donation hemoglobin from the current 125g/L to 130g/L.
Although ferritin levels are not routinely measured on Canadian donors, in a recent study Goldman et al., found that 60% (98/164) of donors reported having seen their physician and another 10% (17/164) had booked appointment with their physician, after receiving notification from CBS advising them of a ferritin less than 25ug/L (See Table 2 from reference article). As such, understanding the iron requirements to replace what is lost during a whole blood donation is important. See Providing iron supplementation section of the article.
We echo the author's conclusion that keeping the health of our donors at the forefront will enhance this special community's ability to play a vital role in the Canadian healthcare system. CBS is continuing to optimize the donor criteria and to evaluate the effectiveness of various interventions as it pertains to maintaining adequate iron stores in our donor population.
Reference: Goldman M, Uzicanin S, Scalia J, et al. Impact of informing donors of low ferritin results. Transfusion 2016;56:2193-2198.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared
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Competing Interests: None declared.