What's New - January 2016 (By topic)
Also see What's new - chronological | What's new - Archives
General and Country-specific News | Diseases | Industry News | Resource Library | Journals
Collaborating Sites: CSTM | Canada's TSOs
General
- BC PBCO: Transfusion Medicine for Physicians (Free one hr. online course with six 10-min. modules)
- See the fun video promo (~ 1 min.)
- CME accredited through Mar 31, 2016
- Target audience: Emergency and family physicians, hospitalists, internists, residents, surgeons
- Canada (CSTM): New blog series recognizing Canadian transfusion medicine colleagues
- Blogs provide a not always rosy historical glimpse of TM through one person's eyes and how the field has changed over the years.
- Comments are most welcome regardless of where you work.
- AABB - Standards for Blood Banks and Transfusion Services (BBTS):
- Summary of significant changes to Standards for BBTS, 29th ed.
- Proposed Interim Standards for public comment (Open until Feb. 29, 2016)
- Response to comments received to proposed 30th edition of BBTS Standards
- Meetings: Canada
- Choosing Wisely National Meeting(30 Mar. 2016, Toronto)
- CSTM Conjoint Annual Meeting with CBS, H-Q (May 11-15, 2016, Vancouver)
- 2018 ISBT World Congress awarded to Toronto [Well done, CSTM. Last Canada-hosted ISBT World Congress was Vancouver 2002]
Canada
- CSA: Z902-15 - Blood and blood components (ed. 3)
- See new CSTM blog series under General above
- Also see Diseases in the News below
- NUPGE Natonal President: Federal government must put an end to paid blood donations (26 Jan. 2016)
- Tainted blood survivors, advocates, strongly oppose private, paid-for plasma clinic; Urge Health Minister Philpott to block Saskatchewan plan (22 Jan. 2016)
- Should we pay for plasma donations? (19 Jan. 2016)
- Paid plasma clinics must be banned: NDP (15 Jan. 2016)
- Meetings
- Choosing Wisely National Meeting (30 Mar. 2016, Toronto)
- CSTM Conjoint Annual Meeting with CBS, H-Q (May 11-15, 2016, Vancouver)
- 2018 ISBT World Congress awarded to Toronto [Well done, CSTM. Last Canada-hosted ISBT World Congress was Vancouver 2002]
Australia
- Consent in hospital and firmly held religious beliefs (29 Jan. 2016)
- Article examines legal issues in case of child who needed a liver transplant and whose parents are Jehovah's Witnesses.
Brazil
- Rio's public hospitals run out of money, stop admitting (20 Jan. 2016)
- Demand outstrips government's ability to fund because of decrease in oil revenue
India
- Student dies for alleged wrong blood transfusion at Jalpaiguri (23 Dec. 2015)
- Hospitals become ‘bloodsuckers’ for patients’ attendants, families (30 Dec. 2015)
- Drs. allegedly force attendants to arrange blood for patients, but don't transfuse it
- Mumbai blood banks struggle with only 57% of staff (28 Dec. 2015)
Iran
- With sanctions lifted, the Blood Transfusion Organization plans to export plasma to Switzerland to produce derivatives such as IVIG (27 Jan. 2016)
Italy
Japan
Thailand
- Desperate search for A Rh neg blood for British backpacker crash victim (11 Jan. 2016)
- Briton has transfusion after social media appeal (11 Jan. 2016)
UK
- Mum who lost astonishing 18 pints of blood during harrowing birth sets new record for most blood products (n=39) (29 Jan. 2016)
- NHSBT offers blood group genotyping for patients with hemoglobinopathies (22 Jan. 2016)
- HCV/HIV contaminated blood: Long-awaited consultation launched (21 Jan. 2016)
- Victim's alcohol level difficult to calculate due to 21 transfusions and saline drip (20 Jan. 2016)
- Filipino nurse allegedly killed 75-year-old by transfusing him with wrong blood group (18 Jan. 2016)
- Why indicate it's a Filipino nurse?
- Charting progress of young Brit who broke 20 bones, received 5 transfusions (15 Jan. 2016) | Great photos
USA
- Hospitals in NY State & throughout U.S. advertising to attract growing number of Canadian medical tourists (27 Jan. 2016) | Right wing Fraser Institute heavily quoted
- Why you get paid to donate plasma, not blood (22 Jan. 2016)
- Background: The twisted business of donating plasma (28 May 2014)
- 5 big players: USA's Baxter and Talecris, Australia's CSL, Spain's Grifols, Switzerland's Octapharma, possibly Biotest AG, an arm of the Dutch nonprofit Sanquin.
- Since 2008, plasma pharmaceuticals have increased from $4b to more than $11b
- Donors of blood stem cells hard to find, despite $800 pay (2 Jan. 2016)
- ARC makes latest transfusion practice guidelines available as on app (31 Dec. 2015) | Also see ARC's blood donor app
- New blood donor rules for MSM gays, no real change (25 Dec. 2015) | Interesting viewpoint
- Also see Diseases in the News below
Industry news
- Billion-dollar blood-test biz Theranos 'putting lives at risk'
- Theranos risks losing its certification
- See Japan above
- Also see TraQ's Industry News
Diseases in the news
- Ebola
- Can we treat Ebola with plasma? The results are in. (8 Jan. 2016)
- van Griensven J, et al., for the Ebola-Tx Consortium. Evaluation of convalescent plasma for Ebola Virus Disease in Guinea. N Engl J Med 2016 Jan 7; 374:33-42. (Full free text)
- HCV / HIV: See UK above
- vCJD
- Urwin PJM, Mackenzie JM, Llewelyn CA,Will RG, Hewitt PE. Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and blood transfusion: updated results of the UK Transfusion Medicine Epidemiology Review Study. Vox Sang 2015 (E-Pub 28 Dec. 2015)
- Zika Virus
- Canada: Blood donations to be deferred for Zika travellers (28 Jan. 2016)
- Also see CBS notice
- USA: FDA reviews blood donation policy during Zika outbreak (28 Jan. 2016)
- WHO: WHO to convene an International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on Zika virus (28 Jan. 2016)
Resource Library / Links
NEW BC PBCO: Transfusion Medicine for Physicians (Free one hr. online course with six 10-min. modules)
- See the fun video promo (~ 1 min.)
- CME accredited through Mar 31, 2016
- Target audience: Emergency and family physicians, hospitalists, internists, residents, surgeons
NEW TM blog: Simply the best (Musings on paid plasma & TM colleagues I've known)
Dec. blog: Islands in the stream (Musings on how love of transfusion medicine unites us)
NEW Cambridge University, UK: Killer T cell, cancer assassin (Fun 1:54 min. video)
@transfusionnews (TraQ webmaster's personal Twitter account)
Canada
* 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)
Seminars in Hematology (Jan. 2016 features hemophilia)
Transfusion (AABB) | Transfusion Medicine (BBTS): Sample copy(Feb. 2014) | 2014 BBTS meeting abstracts
Transfusion Medicine Reviews | Vox sanguinis (ISBT)
- Baía F, Correia F, Alves B, Martinez F, Koch C, Carneiro A, Araújo F. Phenotyping Rh/Kell and risk of alloimmunization in haematological patients. Transfus Med. 2016 Jan 11. [Epub ahead of print]
- Carr R, Kelly AM, Williamson LM. Neonatal thrombocytopenia and platelet transfusion - a UK perspective. Neonatology. 2015;107(1):1-7.
- Hillis CM, Shih AW, Heddle NM. Best practices in the differential diagnosis and reporting of acute transfusion reactions. Int J Clin Transfus Med 2016 Jan 21; Vol. 2016:4:1-14.
- Other papers: Int J Clin Transfus Med papers | About the Journal
- JairathV, Desborough MJR. Modern-day management of upper gastrointestinal haemorrhage. Transfus Med 2015 (E-pub 28 Dec. 2015)
- McBain RD, Crowther CA, Middleton P. Anti-D administration in pregnancy for preventing Rhesus alloimmunisation Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015 Sep 3;9
- Saikia B, Vashisht N, Gupta N, Sharma A. Exchange transfusion for neonate with haemolytic uremic syndrome. SpringerPlus 2016, 5:52
- * Szkotak AJ, Lunty B, Nahirniak S, Clarke G. Interpretation of pretransfusion testing in obstetrical patients who have received antepartum Rh immunoglobulin prophylaxis. Vox Sang. 2016 Jan;110(1):51-9. Epub 2015 May 29.
- Urwin PJM, Mackenzie JM, Llewelyn CA,Will RG, Hewitt PE. CreutzfeldtJakob disease and blood transfusion: updated results of the UK Transfusion Medicine Epidemiology Review Study. Vox Sang 2015 (E-Pub 28 Dec. 2015)
- van Griensven J, et al., for the Ebola-Tx Consortium. Evaluation of convalescent plasma for Ebola Virus Disease in Guinea. N Engl J Med 2016 Jan 7; 374:33-42.
- Yu CF, Hou JF, Shen LZ, Gao K, Rao CM, Yang PY,et al. Acute pulmonary embolism caused by highly aggregated intravenous immunoglobulin. Vox Sang. 2016 Jan;110(1):27-35. Epub 2015 Jul 21.
- Canada: Blood donations to be deferred for Zika travellers (28 Jan. 2016)