Donor health assessment - When is blood donation safe?

Blood donation is a highly regulated practice in the world, ensuring the safety and efficacy of collected blood and its components whether used as irreplaceable parts of modern transfusion medicine, as a therapeutic modality or additional support to other clinical therapies. In Norway blood donation is regulated by governmental regulations ("Blodforskriften") and further instructed by national guidelines, "Veileder for transfusjonstjenesten" [1], providing an aid for assessment of donor health. This concise review touches upon: definitions of donor health and disease; some important pitfalls; and the handling of some common and less common pathophysiological conditions; with an example from the Blood center of Oslo University Hospital, Norway's largest blood center. I also comment on some medications used by a number of blood donors, although wounds, ulcers and surgery are not included. Considering the panorama of conditions blood donors can suffer from, blood donation can never be completely safe for everybody, as zero risk does not exist, but it is our task through donor evaluation to identify and reduce risk as much as possible.