When is irradiated blood needed?

Which blood components need to be irradiated? Only cellular blood components (red cells, platelets and granulocytes) need to be irradiated.

Who should get irradiated blood products?

To prevent ta-GvHD, irradiated blood products should be given to patients at risk: patients after bone marrow transplantation, newborns and children in the 1st year, patients with severe combined immunodeficiency, and patients receiving blood from first-degree relatives.

What is irradiated blood used for?

Irradiated blood and components are used for the prevention of transfusion-associated graft versus host disease (TA-GVHD) in cellular blood products.

How does irradiation affect the shelf life of red blood cells?

At no time can storage of an RBC unit exceed the 42-day limit, so units that are irradiated after the first 14 days of storage will have a remaining shelf life of less than 28 days after irradiation.

Do chemo patients need irradiated blood?

People who have had CAR T-cell therapy should have irradiated blood products for at least 3 months after their treatment. People who’ve been treated with certain chemotherapy drugs, including fludarabine, cladribine, bendamustine and pentostatin, should have irradiated blood products for the rest of their lives.

How does irradiation prevent GVHD?

Gamma irradiation of blood products has been the mainstay of TA-GVHD prevention. Dose of 2500 cGy is required to completely inactivate T cells. Irradiation damage red cells membrane and the red celis units can not be storage for long time after irradiation. High potassium levels is the mainly change in red cells units.

Do transplant patients need irradiated blood?

It is not necessary to provide, at baseline, irradiated blood products in solid organ transplantation, even after transplantation when patients are receiving immunosuppressive therapies (unless patients are being treated with the medications listed in Table 4).

Why do some patients require irradiated blood products?

Why is blood irradiated? Irradiated blood is used to prevent a very rare but serious complication of blood transfusions called ‘transfusion-associated graft-versus-host disease’ (TA-GvHD). This is when donor white blood cells attack your own tissues.

Do lymphoma patients need irradiated blood?

People treated for Hodgkin lymphoma are recommended to have irradiated blood if they ever need a blood transfusion in the future. Irradiating the blood (treating it with X-rays) prevents any donor white blood cells from dividing.

How do they irradiate blood?

Blood is irradiated by exposing the bags to gamma radiation from cobalt-60 or cesium-137 using an instrument called an irradiator. The minimum radiation dose to kill the T-lymphocytes of 25 Gy10. Another method uses X-rays generated by a linear accelerator.