Clinical Benefits of Leukodepleted Blood Products

This book provides a state-of-the-art description of the current status of leukodepleted blood products. Advances in technology, particularly filtration, have achieved great success in the selective removal of these white cells. This has created a new challenge - the enumeration of white cells at low concentrations in filtered products. There may be benefits of the removal of such white cells on the quality of stored red cells and platelets. Improved safety may manifest as the attenuation of febrile reactions and reduction in sensitization to HLA antigens, viral disease transmission, transfusion associated immunomodulation, transfusion-related lung injury and reperfusion injury. Since white cell removal presents logistic problems and has cost implications, a cost-benefit analysis is essential to gauge the economic benefit of this approach. All of these aspects of white cell depleted products are discussed by acknowledged experts.