LookbacksRecords facilitate three kinds of tracking of transfusion-transmittable diseases:
Lookbacks
A lookback is initiated when a previously seronegative blood donor becomes seropositive for a transmissable disease (TD). The blood system (blood center and transfusion service) must look back to identify all transfusion recipients who received blood or blood products from the donor.
Since many products can be made from even a single donation (e.g., red cell concentrate, platelet concentrate, cryoprecipitate, plasma, and fractionated products such as serum albumin and gamma globulin from unused plasma), tracing recipients is an onerous task. Moreover, because donors can donate whole blood every 56 days (North American standard), implicated donors may have donated several times over the course of the past year. During this time they may have been infectious but seronegative. The lookback process is possible only by maintaining meticulous records of the final disposition of all blood products.
Tracebacks
Tracebacks occur whenever a transfusion recipient develops a TD that could possibly have resulted from transfusion. The blood system must trace back to identify all donors whose blood was transfused to the implicated patient. Should a seropositive donor be discovered, this would necessitate a lookback as described above.
Product Recalls
Product recalls typically involve the recall of all lots of a product (or a particular product from a specific manufacturer) that have been implicated in transmitting an infectious disease.
As an example, in 1995 the Canadian Red Cross Society recalled all blood products in its inventory from donors diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) subsequent to donating. Affected products included plasma derivatives made by Red Cross supplier Bayer, Inc. (Miles), such as human serum albumin, intravenous immune globulin, and factor VIII concentrates. Products of other manufacturers were not involved. The recall was undertaken even though there is not a single documented case of blood or its products transmitting CJD.
The Journal of the Canadian Medical Association has several papers about the blood supply and CJD Visit the site and read these two articles:
After reading the papers, post a detailed comment (one to three paragraphs) to the class mailing list
about your thoughts on the CJD issue.
Also post a reply to a commentary made by another class member.
 Records
| Tracking Transfusion-Transmittable Diseases | Information Systems
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