New research at UBC has provided the possibility of identifying high-quality blood donors that can provide long-lasting red blood cells to sensitive recipients, a finding with the potential to improve the outcomes of blood transfusions.
The study was conducted by Dr. Hongshen Ma, a professor in the department of mechanical engineering, the School of Biomedical Engineering and the Centre for Blood Research, alongside research students Emel Islamzada, Eric Lamoureux and Kerryn Matthews, as well as in collaboration with Dr. Mark Scott at Canadian Blood Services.
“We, for a long time, have been interested in the question of how do you measure the quality of donated red blood cells because right now, all donated red blood cells in blood bags are considered to be identical, but blood bankers have known anecdotally that some of the red cell units seem to last longer in recipients,” said Ma.
The researchers developed a device to measure how the deformability of red blood cells from different donors degrades over time. Red blood cells are pushed through microscale structures on the device, and the microscales sort the cells based on their deformability.
“One of the things that the blood cell has to do is to be able to deform [or] squeeze so it can remain in circulation and if you store blood, over time the red blood cells will lose their ability to squeeze and they will get more rigid, and so this mechanical feature of red blood cells is considered … a predictor for how long red blood cells will last,” Ma said.
The researchers found that red blood cells from some donors did not degrade in deformability as fast as red blood cells from other donors and speculated that the device can be used to test for “super donors” that can provide their red blood cells to especially sensitive recipients. Up until now, research on red blood cells in relation to transfusions has been unsuccessful in finding a practical and definitive way to identify high-quality units of blood.
“Donated blood is used for different purposes — sometimes it’s used to treat acute trauma blood loss, in which case you only need blood for a short amount of time, but other times it’s used to treat chronic conditions and in those situations you want the transfusion blood to last as long as possible.”
Testing for super donors would allow blood banks to further benefit recipients by reserving samples that cater to the specific needs of individuals. This means that blood transfusion procedures could be altered so that if a recipient requires frequent transfusions, blood banks can accommodate this by providing blood from a super-donor, which contains red blood cells that remain viable in circulation for a longer period of time.
The researchers hope that this could lead to an overall more successful and efficient red blood cell supply and allocation system within Canada, and perhaps worldwide too.
The study involved blood stored in test tubes — an artificial environment — since test tubes provide a more predictable and accurate degradation of blood cells. Currently, the researchers are working on developing the findings further in a study that uses the device to test donated red blood cells stored in blood bags.
“The situation becomes more complicated in a blood bag because it’s really optimized to make the blood last as long as possible … in future studies … if we track those blood bags as they go through recipients, we can confirm how long they last,” Ma said.