Blood Donation and History
"Give blood" redirects here. For other uses, see Give blood (disambiguation). "Blood donor" redirects here. For the TV episode, see The Blood Donor. Blood donation pictogram
Blood donation center at the University Hospital of Basel, Switzerland. From left to right: Two cell separators for apheresis, secluded office for pre-donation blood pressure measurement and blood count, and on the right, chairs for whole blood donations. A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions and/or made into biopharmaceutical medications by a process called fractionation (separation of whole blood components). Donation may be of whole blood, or of specific components directly (apheresis). Blood banks often participate in the collection process as well as the procedures that follow it. Today in the developed world, most blood donors are unpaid volunteers who donate blood for a community supply. In some countries, established supplies are limited and donors usually give blood when family or friends need a transfusion (directed donation). Many donors donate for several reasons, such as a form of charity, general awareness regarding the demand for blood, increased confidence in oneself, helping a personal friend or relative, and social pressure. Despite the many reasons that people donate, not enough potential donors actively donate. However, this is reversed during disasters when blood donations increase, often creating an excess supply that will have to be later discarded. In countries that allow paid donation some people are paid, and in some cases there are incentives other than money such as paid time off from work. People can also have blood drawn for their own future use (autologous donation). Donating is relatively safe, but some donors have bruising where the needle is inserted or may feel faint. Potential donors are evaluated for anything that might make their blood unsafe to use. The screening includes testing for diseases that can be transmitted by a blood transfusion, including HIV and viral hepatitis. The donor must also answer questions about medical history and take a short physical examination to make sure the donation is not hazardous to their health. How often a donor can donate varies from days to months based on what component they donate and the laws of the country where the donation takes place. For example, in the United States, donors must wait 56 days (eight weeks) between whole-blood donations but only seven days between platelet apheresis donations[1] and twice per seven-day period in plasmapheresis. The amount of blood drawn and the methods vary. The collection can be done manually or with automated equipment that takes only specific components of the blood. Most of the components of blood used for transfusions have a short shelf life, and maintaining a constant supply is a persistent problem. This has led to some increased interest in autotransfusion, whereby a patient's blood is salvaged during surgery for continuous reinfusion—or alternatively, is self-donated prior to when it will be needed. Generally, the notion of donation does not refer to giving to one's self, though in this context it has become somewhat acceptably idiomatic.
History
Charles Richard Drew (1904–1950) was an American surgeon and medical researcher. He researched in the field of blood transfusions, developing improved techniques for blood storage, and applied his expert knowledge to developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II. This allowed medics to save thousands of lives of the Allied forces. As the most prominent African American in the field, Drew protested against the practice of racial segregation in the donation of blood, as it lacked scientific foundation, and resigned his position with the American Red Cross, which maintained the policy until 1950.
Types of donation
Blood donations are divided into groups based on who will receive the collected blood. An 'allogeneic' (also called 'homologous') donation is when a donor gives blood for storage at a blood bank for transfusion to an unknown recipient. A 'directed' donation is when a person, often a family member, donates blood for transfusion to a specific individual. Directed donations are relatively rare when an established supply exists. A 'replacement donor' donation is a hybrid of the two and is common in developing countries. In this case, a friend or family member of the recipient donates blood to replace the stored blood used in a transfusion, ensuring a consistent supply. When a person has blood stored that will be transfused back to the donor at a later date, usually after surgery, that is called an 'autologous donation'. Blood that is used to make medications can be made from allogeneic donations or from donations exclusively used for manufacturing. Blood is sometimes collected using similar methods for therapeutic phlebotomy, similar to the ancient practice of bloodletting, which is used to treat conditions such as hereditary hemochromatosis or polycythemia vera. This blood is sometimes treated as a blood donation, but may be immediately discarded if it cannot be used for transfusion or further manufacturing.[citation needed] The actual process varies according to the laws of the country, and recommendations to donors vary according to the collecting organization. The World Health Organization gives recommendations for blood donation policies, but in developing countries many of these are not followed. For example, the recommended testing requires laboratory facilities, trained staff, and specialized reagents, all of which may not be available or too expensive in developing countries. An event where donors come to donate allogeneic blood is sometimes called a 'blood drive' or a 'blood donor session'. These can occur at a blood bank, but they are often set up at a location in the community such as a shopping center, workplace, school, or house of worship.
Screening
Donors are typically required to give consent for the process, and meet a certain criteria such as weight and hemoglobin levels, and this requirement means minors cannot donate without permission from a parent or guardian. In some countries, answers are associated with the donor's blood, but not name, to provide anonymity; in others, such as the United States, names are kept to create lists of ineligible donors. If a potential donor does not meet these criteria, they are 'deferred'. This term is used because many donors who are ineligible may be allowed to donate later. Blood banks in the United States may be required to label the blood if it is from a therapeutic donor, so some do not accept donations from donors with any blood disease. Others, such as the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, accept blood from donors with hemochromatosis. It is a genetic disorder that does not affect the safety of the blood. The donor's race or ethnic background is sometimes important since certain blood types, especially rare ones, are more common in certain ethnic groups. Historically, in the United States donors were segregated or excluded on race, religion, or ethnicity, but this is no longer a standard practice.
Recipient safety
Donors are screened for health risks that could make the donation unsafe for the recipient. Some of these restrictions are controversial, such as restricting donations from men who have sex with men (MSM) because of the risk of transmitting HIV. In 2011, the UK (excluding Northern Ireland) reduced its blanket ban on MSM donors to a narrower restriction which only prevents MSM from donating blood if they have had sex with other men within the past year. A similar change was made in the US in late 2015 by the FDA. In 2017, the UK and US further reduced their restrictions to three months. Autologous donors are not always screened for recipient safety problems since the donor is the only person who will receive the blood. Since the donated blood may be given to pregnant women or women of child-bearing age, donors taking teratogenic (birth defect-causing) medications are deferred. These medications include acitretin, etretinate, isotretinoin, finasteride, and dutasteride. Donors are examined for signs and symptoms of diseases that can be transmitted in a blood transfusion, such as HIV, malaria, and viral hepatitis. Screening may include questions about risk factors for various diseases, such as travel to countries at risk for malaria or variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD). These questions vary from country to country. For example, while blood centers in Québec and the rest of Canada, Poland, and many other places defer donors who lived in the United Kingdom for risk of vCJD, donors in the United Kingdom are only restricted for vCJD risk if they have had a blood transfusion in the United Kingdom.
Donor safety
The donor is also examined and asked specific questions about their medical history to make sure that donating blood is not hazardous to their health. The donor's hematocrit or hemoglobin level is tested to make sure that the loss of blood will not make them anemic, and this check is the most common reason that a donor is ineligible. Accepted hemoglobin levels for blood donations, by the American Red Cross, is 12.5g/dL (for females) and 13.0g/dL (for males) to 20.0g/dL, anyone with a higher or lower hemoglobin level cannot donate. Pulse, blood pressure, and body temperature are also evaluated. Elderly donors are sometimes also deferred on age alone because of health concerns. In addition to age, weight and height are important factors when considering the eligibility for donors. For example, the American Red Cross requires a donor to be 110 pounds (50 kg) or more for whole blood and platelet donation and at least 130 pounds (59 kg) (males) and at least 150 pounds (68 kg) (females) for power red donations (double red erythrocytapheresis). The safety of donating blood during pregnancy has not been studied thoroughly, and pregnant women are usually deferred until six weeks after the pregnancy.
Blood testing
The donor's blood type must be determined if the blood will be used for transfusions. The collecting agency usually identifies whether the blood is type A, B, AB, or O and the donor's Rh (D) type and will screen for antibodies to less common antigens. More testing, including a crossmatch, is usually done before a transfusion. Type O negative is often cited as the "universal donor" but this only refers to red cell and whole blood transfusions. For plasma and platelet transfusions the system is reversed: AB positive is the universal platelet donor type while both AB positive and AB negative are universal plasma donor types. Most blood is tested for diseases, including some STDs. The tests used are high-sensitivity screening tests and no actual diagnosis is made. Some of the test results are later found to be false positives using more specific testing. False negatives are rare, but donors are discouraged from using blood donation for the purpose of anonymous STD screening because a false negative could mean a contaminated unit. The blood is usually discarded if these tests are positive, but there are some exceptions, such as autologous donations. The donor is generally notified of the test result. Donated blood is tested by many methods, but the core tests recommended by the World Health Organization are these four:
Hepatitis B surface antigen
Antibody to hepatitis C
Antibody to HIV, usually subtypes 1 and 2
Serologic test for syphilis
The WHO reported in 2006 that 56 out of 124 countries surveyed did not use these basic tests on all blood donations. A variety of other tests for transfusion transmitted infections are often used based on local requirements. Additional testing is expensive, and in some cases the tests are not implemented because of the cost. These additional tests include other infectious diseases such as West Nile fever and babesiosis. Sometimes multiple tests are used for a single disease to cover the limitations of each test. For example, the HIV antibody test will not detect a recently infected donor, so some blood banks use a p24 antigen or HIV nucleic acid test in addition to the basic antibody test to detect infected donors. Cytomegalovirus is a special case in donor testing in that many donors will test positive for it. The virus is not a hazard to a healthy recipient, but it can harm infants and other recipients with weak immune systems.
Obtaining the blood
There are two main methods of obtaining blood from a donor. The most frequent is to simply take the blood from a vein as whole blood. This blood is typically separated into parts, usually red blood cells and plasma, since most recipients need only a specific component for transfusions. The amount of blood donated in one session - generally called a 'unit' - is defined by the WHO as 450 millilitres. Some countries like Canada follow this standard, but others have set their own rules, and sometimes there is variation even among different agencies within a country. For example, whole blood donations in the United States are in the 460-500 ml range, while those in the EU must be in the 400-500 ml range. Other countries have smaller units - India uses 350 ml, Singapore 350 or 450 ml, and Japan 200 or 400 ml. Historically, donors in the People's Republic of China would donate only 200 ml, though larger 300 and 400 ml donations have become more common, particularly in northern China and for heavier donors. In any case, an additional 5-10 ml of blood may be collected separately for testing. The other method is to draw blood from the donor, separate it using a centrifuge or a filter, store the desired part, and return the rest to the donor. This process is called apheresis, and it is often done with a machine specifically designed for this purpose. This process is especially common for plasma, platelets, and red blood cells. For direct transfusions a vein can be used but the blood may be taken from an artery instead. In this case, the blood is not stored, but is pumped directly from the donor into the recipient. This was an early method for blood transfusion and is rarely used in modern practice. It was phased out during World War II because of problems with logistics, and doctors returning from treating wounded soldiers set up banks for stored blood when they returned to civilian life.
Site preparation and drawing blood
The blood is drawn from a large arm vein close to the skin, usually the median cubital vein on the inside of the elbow. The skin over the blood vessel is cleaned with an antiseptic such as iodine or chlorhexidine to prevent skin bacteria from contaminating the collected blood[60] and also to prevent infections where the needle pierced the donor's skin. A large needle (16 to 17 gauge) is used to minimize shearing forces that may physically damage red blood cells as they flow through the needle. A tourniquet is sometimes wrapped around the upper arm to increase the pressure of the blood in the arm veins and speed up the process. The donor may also be prompted to hold an object and squeeze it repeatedly to increase the blood flow through the vein.
Whole blood
The most common method is collecting the blood from the donor's vein into a container. The amount of blood drawn varies from 200 millilitres to 550 millilitres depending on the country, but 450 millilitres is typical. The blood is usually stored in a flexible plastic bag that also contains sodium citrate, phosphate, dextrose, and adenine. This combination keeps the blood from clotting and preserves it during storage up to 42 days. Other chemicals are sometimes added during processing. The plasma from whole blood can be used to make plasma for transfusions or it can also be processed into other medications using a process called fractionation. This was a development of the dried plasma used to treat the wounded during World War II and variants on the process are still used to make a variety of other medications.
Apheresis
Apheresis is a blood donation method where the blood is passed through an apparatus that separates out one particular constituent and returns the remainder to the donor. Usually the component returned is the red blood cells, the portion of the blood that takes the longest to replace. Using this method an individual can donate plasma or platelets much more frequently than they can safely donate whole blood. These can be combined, with a donor giving both plasma and platelets in the same donation.[citation needed] Platelets can also be separated from whole blood, but they must be pooled from multiple donations. From three to ten units of whole blood are required for a therapeutic dose. Plateletpheresis provides at least one full dose from each donation.[citation needed] During a platelet donation, the blood is drawn from the patient and the platelets are separated from the other blood components. The remainder of the blood, red blood cells, plasma, and white blood cells are returned to the patient. This process is completed several times for a period of up to two hours to collect a single donation. Plasmapheresis is frequently used to collect source plasma that is used for manufacturing into medications much like the plasma from whole blood. Plasma collected at the same time as plateletpheresis is sometimes called concurrent plasma. Apheresis is also used to collect more red blood cells than usual in a single donation (commonly known as "double reds") and to collect white blood cells for transfusion.
Recovery and time between donations
Donors are usually kept at the donation site for 10–15 minutes after donating since most adverse reactions take place during or immediately after the donation. Blood centers typically provide light refreshments, such as orange juice and cookies, or a lunch allowance to help the donor recover. The needle site is covered with a bandage and the donor is directed to keep the bandage on for several hours. In hot climates, donors are advised to avoid dehydration (strenuous exercise and games, alcohol) until a few hours after donation.[citation needed] Donated plasma is replaced after 2–3 days. Red blood cells are replaced by bone marrow into the circulatory system at a slower rate, on average 36 days in healthy adult males. In one study, the range was 20 to 59 days for recovery. These replacement rates are the basis of how frequently a donor can donate blood.[citation needed] Plasmapheresis and plateletpheresis donors can donate much more frequently because they do not lose significant amounts of red cells. The exact rate of how often a donor can donate differs from country to country. For example, plasmapheresis donors in the United States are allowed to donate large volumes twice a week and could nominally donate 83 litres (about 22 gallons) in a year, whereas the same donor in Japan may only donate every other week and could only donate about 16 litres (about 4 gallons) in a year. Iron supplementation decreases the rates of donor deferral due to low hemoglobin, both at the first donation visit and at subsequent donations. Iron-supplemented donors have higher hemoglobin and iron stores. On the other hand, iron supplementation frequently causes diarrhea, constipation and epigastric abdominal discomfort. The long-term effects of iron supplementation without measurement of iron stores are unknown.
Complications
Donors are screened for health problems that would put them at risk for serious complications from donating. First-time donors, teenagers, and women are at a higher risk of a reaction. One study showed that 2% of donors had an adverse reaction to donation. Most of these reactions are minor. A study of 194,000 donations found only one donor with long-term complications.[83] In the United States, a blood bank is required to report any death that might possibly be linked to a blood donation. An analysis of all reports from October 2008 to September 2009 evaluated six events and found that five of the deaths were clearly unrelated to donation, and in the remaining case they found no evidence that the donation was the cause of death. Bruising three days after donation Hypovolemic reactions can occur because of a rapid change in blood pressure. Fainting is generally the worst problem encountered. The process has similar risks to other forms of phlebotomy. Bruising of the arm from the needle insertion is the most common concern. One study found that less than 1% of donors had this problem. A number of less common complications of blood donation are known to occur. These include arterial puncture, delayed bleeding, nerve irritation, nerve injury, tendon injury, thrombophlebitis, and allergic reactions. Donors sometimes have adverse reactions to the sodium citrate used in apheresis collection procedures to keep the blood from clotting. Since the anticoagulant is returned to the donor along with blood components that are not being collected, it can bind the calcium in the donor's blood and cause hypocalcemia. These reactions tend to cause tingling in the lips, but may cause convulsions, seizure, hypertension, or more serious problems. Donors are sometimes given calcium supplements during the donation to prevent these side effects. In apheresis procedures, the red blood cells are returned. If this is done manually and the donor receives the blood from a different donor, a transfusion reaction can take place. Manual apheresis is extremely rare in the developed world because of this risk and automated procedures are as safe as whole blood donations. The final risk to blood donors is from equipment that has not been properly sterilized. In most cases, the equipment that comes in direct contact with blood is discarded after use. Re-used equipment was a significant problem in China in the 1990s, and up to 250,000 blood plasma donors may have been exposed to HIV from shared equipment.
Storage and blood shelf life
The collected blood is usually stored in a blood bank as separate components, and some of these have short shelf lives. There are no storage methods to keep platelets for extended periods of time, though some were being studied as of 2008. The longest shelf life used for platelets is seven days. Red blood cells (RBC), the most frequently used component, have a shelf life of 35–42 days at refrigerated temperatures. For (relatively rare) long-term storage applications, this can be extended by freezing the blood with a mixture of glycerol, but this process is expensive and requires an extremely cold freezer for storage. Plasma can be stored frozen for an extended period of time and is typically given an expiration date of one year and maintaining a supply is less of a problem.
Demand for blood
The American Red Cross states that in the United States, someone needs blood every two seconds, and someone needs platelets every thirty seconds. There is not a consistent demand for each blood type. One type of blood being in stock does not guarantee that another type is. Blood banks may have some units in stock but lack others, ultimately causing the patients that need units for specific blood types to have delayed or canceled procedures. Additionally, every year there is an increase of around 5-7% for transfusions without an increase of donors to balance it as well as a growing population of elderly people that will need more transfusions in the future without a predicted increase in donations to reflect those growing numbers. This was supported in 1998 where blood donations to the Red Cross increased to 8%, totaling 500,000 units but hospitals' need for donations increased by 11%. Blood donations tend to always be high in demand with numerous accounts repeatedly stating periodic shortages over the decades. However, this trend is disrupted during national disasters. The trend demonstrates that people are donating the most during catastrophes when, arguably, donations are not as needed compared to periods without disasters. From 1988 to 2013, it has been reported that during every national disaster, there was a surplus of donations; a surplus that consisted of over 100 units. One of the most notable examples of this pattern was the September 11th attacks. A study observed that compared to the four weeks before September 11, there was an estimated increase of 18,700 donations from first-time donors for the first week after the attack: 4,000 was the average of donations from first-time donors before the attack which increased to about 22,700 donations; while repeat donors increased their donations by 10,000 per week: initially, donations were estimated to be around 16,400 which increased to 26,400 donations after September 11. Therefore, in the first week after the attack on 9/11, there was an overall estimated 28,700 increase in donations compared to the average weekly donations made four weeks prior to the attack. Increases in donations were observed in all blood donation centers, beginning on the day of the attack. While blood donations were above average after the first few weeks following 9/11, the number of donations fell from an estimated 49,000 donations in the first week to 26,000–28,000 donations between the second and fourth weeks after 9/11. Despite the substantial increase of donors, the rate that first-time donors would become repeat donors were the same before and after the attack. The limited storage time means that it is difficult to have a stockpile of blood to prepare for a disaster. The subject was discussed at length after the September 11 attacks in the United States, and the consensus was that collecting during a disaster was impractical and that efforts should be focused on maintaining an adequate supply at all times.[109] Blood centers in the U.S. often have difficulty maintaining even a three-day supply for routine transfusion demands.
History
1260 AD
The earliest accounts of the circulation of blood was by the Arabic scholar, mathematician and physician Ibn-al- Nafis* who described the 'minor circulation' of blood in the body.
(* Khairallah AA, Haddad SI. A forgotten chapter in the history of the circulation of blood. Ann Surg 1936; 104: 1-8.)
1616
William Harvey was the first person to correctly describe blood's circulation in the body. He showed that arteries and veins form a complete circuit. The circuit starts at the heart and leads back to the heart. The heart's regular contractions drive the flow of blood around the whole body.
1667
Richard Lower also performed the first transfusion of blood from a sheep into a human. He was one of the foremost surgeons of his day and was involved in pioneering discoveries in blood circulation and breathing. Although Lower understood the usefulness of blood transfusions following injury or other blood loss, in humans it often caused severe and sometimes fatal reactions, and 10 years later it was banned by Parliament. It was over 200 years later that an understanding of blood groups made routine transfusions possible.
1825-1830
James Blundell*, is credited with reintroducing blood transfusion into medical practice. Blundell reported favourably on the benefit of transfusion in cases of post-partum haemorrhage. He performed ten documented transfusions, five of which proved beneficial to his patients, and published these results. He devised an apparatus, known as Blundell's Impellor, which consisted of a funnel and pump for the collection of donor blood for indirect transfusion into the veins of a patient. The invention of the hypodermic syringe by Alexander Wood in 1853 provided an important aid to transfusionists and led to the development of new devices to carry out transfusions.
(* Blundell J. Successful case of transfusion. Lancet 1828 i: 431-2.)
1901-1910
In 1901, Landsteiner* described three different human blood types, A, B and 0. The following year, Alfred von Decastello and Adriano Sturli** defined a fourth type, AB. The ABO blood group system originally designated by Landsteiner remains the principal donor-recipient matching criteria for human blood transfusion.
Other blood type designations were described in Czechoslovakia by Jansky*** in 1907 and in the United States by Moss**** in 1910. Both were in use as much as Landsteiner's and were still used three decades later.
(* Landsteiner K. Uber Agglutinationserscheinungen normalen mensclinchen Blutes. Wiener Klinik Wochensctire 1901; 1: 5-8 (English translation in Transfusion 1961; 1: 1132-4).
** Decastello A, Sturli A. Ueber die Isoagglutinine im Serum gesunder und kranker Menschen. Munch med Wshr 1902; 49: 1090-5
*** Jansky J. Haematologicke, studie u. psychotiku. Sb Klin Praze 1907; 8: 85-139.
**** Moss WL. Studies on isoagglutinins and isohemolysins. Bull Johns Hopkins Hospital 1910; 21: 63-70.)
1913
Ottenburg and Kaliski*, described the beneficial outcome of pretransfusion compatibility testing or 'cross matching' in 128 patients at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. However, this did not become a regular procedure until many years later.
(* Ottenburg R, Kaliski DJ. Accidents in transfusion; their prevention by preliminary blood examination based on an experience of one hundred and twenty-eight transfusions. JAMA 1913: 61: 2138-40.)
First World War (1914 - 1918)
The practice of blood transfusion advanced with the outbreak of the First World War, mainly due to the new knowledge of matching different blood groups and the use of an anticoagulant that facilitated indirect transfusion. The practice of blood transfusion was favored by the American and the Canadian surgeons arriving at the Western Front to cope with the increasing number of casualties suffered in France and Belgium. The beneficial effect in combating blood loss in major trauma was soon recognized and adopted by British and French surgeons. As a result, the establishment of the first bank of stored blood was described by Oswald H Robertson* in 1918. He stored blood for up to 21 days to treat haemorrhagic shock suffered in battlefield injuries. (* Robertson OH. Transfusion with preserved red blood cells. BMJ 1918; 1: 691-5)
Spanish Civil War (1937 - 1939)
Development of large-scale blood storage happened during the Spanish Civil War between 1937 and 1939. The subsequent publication of the effectiveness of transfusion, by army surgeons, resulted in its introduction to civilian medical practice.
1940
Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener described the first Rhesus (Rh) blood group. This initiated work on unravelling what is probably the most complex blood group system known. Edwin Cohn, a professor of biological chemistry at Harvard Medical School, develops cold ethanol fractionation, the process of breaking down plasma into components and products.
1941
Isodor Ravdin, a prominent surgeon from Philadelphia, effectively treated victims of the Pearl Harbor attack with Cohn's albumin for shock. Injected into the Blood stream, albumin absorbs liquid from surrounding tissues, preventing Blood vessels from collapsing; the finding associated with shock.
1943
The introduction by J.F. Loutit and P. L. Mollison of acid citrate dextrose (ACD) solution, which reduces the volume of anticoagulant, permitted transfusions of greater volumes of Blood and longer term Blood storage.
1945
Robin Coombs, working with Race and Mourant, developed the antiglobulin test (Coombs' test), used for the detection of 'incomplete' antibodies was first described in 1945. The test has become a standard technique in blood group serology.
1950
JRobert Race and Ruth Sanger, well-known names in blood group science, published Blood groups in man. This work became the standard reference book on the subject for several decades. Carl Walter and W. P. Murphy, Jr., introduced the plastic bag for Blood collection. This replaced breakable glass bottles with rugged plastic bags. This technical development enabled the evolution of a collection system capable of safer and easier preparation of multiple Blood components from a single unit of whole Blood.
1953
Development of the refrigerated centrifuge began to further expedite Blood component therapy.
1954
The Blood product Cryoprecipitate (now AHF) was developed for people suffering from hemophilia.
1960
A. Solomon and J. L. Fahey reported the first therapeutic plasmapheresis procedure.
1962
The first antihemophilic factor (AHF) concentrate to treat coagulation disorders in hemophilia patients was developed through the process of fractionation.
1964
Plasmapheresis was introduced as a means of collecting Plasma for fractionation.
1965
Judith Graham Pool identifies the technique, now known as cryoprecipitation for concentrating factor VII from Blood plasma.
1967
Rh immune globulin was commercially introduced to prevent Rh disease in the newborns of Rh-negative women.
1969
S. Murphy and F. Gardner demonstrated the feasibility of storing Platelets at room temperature, which revolutionized platelet transfusion therapy.
1972
Apheresis was used to extract one cellular component, returning the rest of the Blood to the donor.
1979
A new anticoagulant preservative, CPDA-1, which extends the shelf life of whole Blood and red Blood cells to 35 days, increasing the Blood supply and facilitating resource sharing among Blood banks is introduced.