TraQ Program of the BC PBCO

TraQ's newsletter reports monthly website updates and is sent to everyone who registers to receive them.

* Feedback appreciated: Please let us know what you think of TraQ and how you use it. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

NOTE: TraQ's website MAY be offline for a short time this fall to change to a new server.
We appreciate your patience.

Global News

General

• Smartphone 'dongle' that diagnoses 3 diseases from 1 blood drop being field trialed in Rwanda (5 Oct. 2015)
• The Storm abroad. Anesthesiology during wartime (by Lt. Cmdr. Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, Medical Corps, U.S. Navy)
  • Part 1: Preparing for battle: anesthesia training for combat missions.Anesthesiology News 2015 May; Vol. 41(5).
  • Part 11:Giving blood on the battlefield. Anesthesiology News 2015 Oct; Vol. 41(10).
• Sequencing study detects new virus -human hepegivirus 1- in blood transfusion recipients (22 Sept. 2015)
• Meetings:
  • Canada: 2018 ISBT World Congress awarded to Toronto [Well done, CSTM! Last Canada-hosted ISBT World Congress was Vancouver 2002]
  • AABB Annual Meeting (Oct. 24-27, 2015, Anaheim, CA)
  • ASH Annual Meeting (Dec. 5-8, 2015, Orlando, FL)
• Also see Kapoor, et al. under Journals below

Canada

• Commodifying blood donation (paying for it) could solve Canada's shortfall (Opinion piece, Oct. 8, 2015)
• Babesia testing on blood donors not warranted (16 Oct. 2015)
  • O'Brien SF, Delage G, Scalia V, Lindsay R, Bernier F, Dubuc S, et al. Seroprevalence of Babesia microti infection in Canadian blood donors. Transfusion. 2015 Oct 1. [Epub ahead of print]
• Vancouver Aquarium performs historic nephrectomy and transfusion on sea otter (6 Oct. 2015)
  • Corky succumbs to injuries
• Canadian Blood Services employees on strike in PEI (14 Sept. 2015)
  • Background: Without sufficient hours, no benefits (8 Sept. 2015)
• Also see Diseases (WNV) below

Belgium

• See Chagas disease below

India

• Govt allows transfer of blood between blood banks and fixs exchange price of surplus plasma at Rs. 1,600/litre, but not in cash (19 Oct. 2015) | 1600 INR ~$25 USD/$32 CDN

UK

• Former soldier relates his experience with contacting hepatitis C from blood transfusion in first Gulf War (4 Oct. 2015)

USA

• Paid plasma news
  • How America's poor sell plasma to pay bills (14 Oct. 2015)
  • Lawsuit says probationers sold blood plasma to pay debts to company that extorted them (2 Oct. 2015)
• The Dark Report explains details of perhaps biggest case of Medicare fraud and abuse in history of clinical laboratory business (12 Oct. 2015)
  • Lab soaked government for more than $1b in fraudulent claims with collusion of physicians who accepted bribes and inducements
• New developments in $1 billion lab fraud case (14 Sept. 2015)
• The rising risk of a contaminated blood supply (27 Sept. 2015)
• Meetings:
  • AABB Annual Meeting (Oct. 24-27, 2015, Anaheim, CA)
  • ASH Annual Meeting (Dec. 5-8, 2015, Orlando, FL)

Zimbabwe

• Blood product expense, lack of storage facilities, and errratic electricity hampers blood stocks (15 Oct. 2015)

Industry news

• Theranos' CEO Elizabeth Holmes needs to stop complaining and answer questions (15 Oct. 2015)
  • Holmes claims that established US mega-labs like Quest and Laboratory Corporation of America seed the media with negative stories about Theranos
• Internationally-respected experts in clinical pathology and laboratory medicine ask, Why don’t we know more about Theranos’ technology? (21 Sept. 2015)
• Vietnamese-American pharma billionaire debuts on Forbes 400 (29 Sept. 2015)
  • RAAS Shanghai
  • Q&A on plasmapheresis

Diseases in the news

• Babesiosis: See Canada above
• Chagas disease: Blumental S, Lambermont M, Heijmans C, Rodenbach MP, El Kenz H, Sondag D, et al. First documented transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi infection through blood transfusion in a child with sickle-cell disease in Belgium. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2015 Oct 15;9(10):e0003986. eCollection 2015. (Full free text)
  • Implicated donor was born in Brazil and moved to Belgium 7 years earlier. The authors note that Chagas infection has to be considered, even in European countries that host a small population of immigrants from Latin America.
• HIV: See Raimondo, et al., in Journals below
• WNV
  • Canada (BC Ministry of Health): West Nile Virus Update #2015-3 (26 August 2015)
    • 2015 Action Plan for WNV and the Blood Supply

Resource Library / Links

Precision medicine for transfusion community (3 min. video;30 Sept. 2015)

NEW TM blog:Little boxes (Musings on when established clinical labs become passé)

TM blog (Sept.): Sweet dreams are made of this (Musings on personalized medicine)

@transfusionnews (TraQ webmaster's personal Twitter account)

Canada

BC PBCO 2015 Updates:

TM Medical Policy Manual Table of Contents (March 2015)

6.2 Indications for Irradiation of Blood Components (Revised 2015-03-06)

Technical Operations Manual: Common Procedures - Other

OM.0001 Processing a Canadian Blood Services Lookback (v. 1.0, 2015-03-23)

NEW OM.0003 Notifying the Lookback Recipient’s Physician (v. 1.1, 2015-07-02)

OM.0004 Completing the Documentation and Reporting for a Canadian Blood Services Lookback Notification (v. 1.0, 2015-03-23)

OM.0005 Lookback Process Flowmap (v. 1.0, 2015-03-23)

* See TraQ's Resource Library | Nursing resources | Literature clearinghouses | Links | Continuing education | Jobs | Video library

Journals, etc.

Free full text papers | * 1 or more Canadian authors

Free sample journal issues (Jan. 2015 unless indicated otherwise)

Transfusion (AABB) | Transfusion Medicine (BBTS): <Sample copy(Feb. 2014) | 2014 BBTS meeting abstracts

Transfusion Medicine Reviews | Vox sanguinis (ISBT)

• Blumental S, Lambermont M, Heijmans C, Rodenbach MP, El Kenz H, Sondag D, et al. First documented transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi infection through blood transfusion in a child with sickle-cell disease in Belgium. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2015 Oct 15;9(10):e0003986. eCollection 2015.
• Denomme GA. Kell and Kx blood group systems. Immunohematology. 2015;31(1):14-9.
• Kapoor A, Kumar A, Simmonds P, Bhuva N, Singh Chauhan L, Lee B, et al. Virome analysis of transfusion recipients reveals a novel human virus that shares genomic features with hepaciviruses and pegiviruses. MBio. 2015 Sep 22;6(5). pii: e01466-15.
• O'Brien SF, Delage G, Scalia V, Lindsay R, Bernier F, Dubuc S, et al. Seroprevalence of Babesia microti infection in Canadian blood donors. Transfusion. 2015 Oct 1. [Epub ahead of print]
• Raimondo M, Facco G, Regine V, Pupella S, Grazzini G, Suligoi B. HIV-positive blood donors unaware of their sexual at-risk behaviours before donation in Italy. Vox Sang. 2015 Sep 28. [Epub ahead of print]
• Tinegate H, Pendry K, Murphy M, Babra P, Grant-Casey J, Hopkinson C,et al. Where do all the red blood cells (RBCs) go? Results of a survey of RBC use in England and North Wales in 2014. Transfusion. 2015 Oct 7. [Epub ahead of print]