Blood transfusion from pregnant women is associated with an increased risk of death among male recipients of transfusions but not among female recipients. The most common cause of transfusion-related mortality is transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), which has also been shown to be associated with transfusions from female donors. Furthermore, TRALI is associated specifically with transfusions from female donors with a history of pregnancy.
‘Patients who received red blood cell transfusions from a female recipient who was pregnant are at an increased risk of death.’
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Rutger A. Middelburg, Ph.D., of Sanquin Research, Leiden, the Netherlands, and colleagues conducted a study of first-time transfusion recipients at six major Dutch hospitals to quantify the association between red blood cell transfusion from female donors with and without a history of pregnancy and mortality of red blood cell recipients. The group for the primary analyses consisted of 31,118 patients who received 59,320 red blood cell transfusions from 1 of 3 types of donors (88 percent male; 6 percent ever-pregnant female; and 6 percent never-pregnant female).
The number of deaths in this group was 3,969 (13 percent mortality). For male recipients of red blood cell transfusions, all-cause mortality rates after a red blood cell transfusion from an ever-pregnant female donor vs male donor were 101 vs 80 deaths per 1,000 person-years.
For receipt of transfusion from a never-pregnant female donor vs male donor, mortality rates were 78 vs 80 deaths per 1,000 person-years. Among female recipients of red blood cell transfusions, mortality rates for an ever-pregnant female donor vs male donor were 74 vs 62 per 1,000 person-years.
Source-Eurekalert