A Study on ALT levels in Hepatitis Marker Positive Donors -Anti-HBc Positive Rate in Blood Donors- / 대한수혈학회지

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis viral markers and ALT levels were evaluated in 190,679 blood donors to infer correlation between positive and control groups. The positive rate of anti-HBc was also observed in HBsAg and anti-HBs negative donors to know necessity about adding the item to the donor screening test. METHODS: The viral markers were tested by EIA method and ALT test was carried by auto-chemistry analyzer. Anti-HCV ELISA positive samples were confirmed by immunoblot assay. RESULTS: The rate of HBsAg(+) was 3.01% and that of anti-HCV was 0.54% of blood donors. The rate of HBsAg(+) and anti-HCV(+) was 0.01% of blood donors. Average ALT level of anti-HCV(+) (immunoblot assay) group was significantly higher than that of the control group. (p<0.001). The positive rate of anti-HCV in confirmatory test (immunoblot assay) was 15.76%. The proportion of donors who were HBsAg(-) and anti-HBs(-) and anti-HBc(+) was 1.87% in 1500 blood donors. CONCLUSION: The average ALT levels seem to be not correlated with viral hepatitis marker positivity except anti-HCV immunoblot assay positivity. It is suggested that anti-HBc and anti-HBs test should be added to screening test for donors and recipients to prevent post transfusional hepatitis.

Filtration Effects of Leukocyte Removal Filter for Platelet Concentrates / 대한수혈학회지

Some variables can influence the efficiency of leukocyte removal filter for red cell concentrates. We performed this study to evaluate whether the filtration efficiency for platelet concentrates(PCs) can be influenced by bedside filter(PXL8K, Pall Corporation, USA) used, platelet storage time and transient stopping of platelet agitation, and to measure the amount of cytokines released from donor leukocytes in PCs during the storage time. In addition, we examined the effect of leukocyte reduction by filtration before the storage of PCs on the subsequent generation of cytokines. Any of the above mentioned variables did not make significant differences. From day 1 to day 5, there were significant increases in IL-1 beta (<1 vs. 8.6 pg/mL, p<0.05), IL-8 (<10 vs. 455.3 pg/mL, p<0.05) and TNF-alpha (<4 vs. 16.6 pg/mL, p<0.05) in unflltered PCs, whereas no increased revels of cytokines were found in the cases of prestorage filtration.