Plateletpheresis donor deferral pattern: A retrospective 4-year data analysis at tertiary care center in India

Increasing demand of single donor platelet requires blood banks to expand the donor pool. A reassessment of donor deferral criteria for plateletpheresis is required to ensure that this increasing demand is met without compromising on product quality and donor safety.

(1) To list the various causes of SDP donor deferral. (2) To discuss various approaches to minimize it.

Data of plateletpheresis donor deferral were collected from records retrospectively over a period of 4 years from January 2017 to December 2020.

All statistical tests were performed using IBM SPSS software for Windows version 20. Categorical variables were presented as proportions, while continuous variables were presented as mean with standard deviation, mean calculated P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Out of the 7478 donors screened for plateletpheresis procedure, 3232 (43.2%) were deferred among which 3089 (42.5%) were male and 142 (63.1%) were female donors. Majority (96.5%) of deferral were temporary. These included low platelet count (47.4%) followed by poor venous access (22.4%) and low hemoglobin (Hb) (7.2%). Among the donors deferred for low Hb, 24.7% (58 out of 234) had Hb between 12 and 12.4 g%. Similarly, among donor deferred for low platelet count, 12% (184 out of 1532) had platelet count between 140 and 149 × 10³/μl.

There is potential for increasing the number of eligible plateletpheresis donors if the present donor selection criteria were relaxed to a minimum Hb of 12 g/dl and minimum platelet count of 140 × 10³/μl.