why can’t people with anemia (not enough iron in blood) get blood transfers from donors who have hemochromatosis (too much iron in blood)?
In: Biology
Two issues with hemochromatosis:
-Theoretical risk for iron overload in the recipient, especially in those with childhood anemias (ex: sickle cell, PKD, etc).
-Theoretical risk for anaphylaxis.
Both risks are minuscule and you’d be hard pressed to find a hematologist who agrees with this logic, but the counterargument is “why bother risking it unless there’s a major shortage” so that’s where it stands in the US.
Another thing to understand from the iron-deficient patient side is that we avoid giving blood products to these patients because their body will eventually develop antibodies to the donor blood (alloantibodies), making it so they “reject it” with time. So say later on they get in a car accident and need blood more urgently, they now have to wait ~24 hours to find a suitable donor since they have alloantibodies to the majority of donor blood (ex: anti-Duffy). Just a rough example.
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