Blood emergency? The haematologist: “Doctors often ask it just for peace of mind”
The recent scandal in Great Britain shows that donated money can even die
ROME – “Sometimes there isn’t even a need for blood and maybe the doctors ask for it for peace of mind rather than for actual necessity and this also happens quite often. They consider it prudence, it’s a form of protection for themselves on a legal level: to be able to say that the blood was there. Most people accept transfusions anyway.” Patrizio Mazza, oncohaematologist for many years at Moscati/SS Annunziata in Taranto and who now has a “widespread” clinic as he calls it: “I go where they call me”, replied to Dire on the blood emergency that returns almost like a ritual appointment every summer.
The 2023 data released by the National Blood Center show that “on the collection of plasma, which is crucial for the production of plasma-derived drugs, Italy shows a marked dependence on foreign countries. In 2023, plasma collection increased at just 15.3 kg per 1,000 inhabitants, below the self-sufficiency threshold of 18 kg per personThere are also significant disparities in plasma collection between Italian regions “. What operations is blood needed for? “It is used for the wounded policeman who is bleeding – explains the doctor thinking about the case of Christian Di Martino – unless he doesn’t want it, or for interventions that don’t go the right way, or a car accident leading to a ruptured spleen“. But for diseases, for example, such as “acute myeloid leukemias, especially in a young person, who comes to the treatment that has 5 of hemoglobin, it can be done without but it must be very timely, because even if things go well there It takes 4-5 weeks before it responds. Even a transplant or autotransplant can be done without blood. It must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.”
Many cases followed by Mazza, of patients such as Jehovah’s Witnesses who refuse transfusions, have gone well because there are ways to increase hemoglobin: “if the patient has his own blood it is the best guarantee“. How do you do it? Administering iron and erythropoietin to stimulate the marrow: “I have taken young people to very large operations by getting the hemoglobin to 15-16, for the elderly who have a less responsive marrow it can be more difficult”. How much when appealing to donors Mazza thinks that in the summer the issue is mainly one of distraction: “on holiday you think less about donating” this could be one reason. In some countries the donation is paid and the risk of importing from abroad “is supposed to be tested”, he adds. Despite the recent scandal in Great Britain, like the Italian one that broke out in the 1990s, they have shown that one can even die from ‘donated’ blood.