About and Activities
Subgroups
The Blood Components Working Party has the following subgroups. Please click on the title to read more about the group.
Extracellular vesicles in blood components subgroup
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a heterogenous group of membrane enclosed vesicles that have both physiological and pathologic functions. Considerable efforts have been made to understand the fundamental biology of EVs in circulating blood, although their complexity poses challenges in definition, separation, and characterisation. The production and storage of red blood cell and platelet products leads to the release of EVs, which may affect product quality and transfusion outcomes, but considerably less work has been done in this context. In the short-term, this subgroup will review the existing literature to identify knowledge gaps in the context of EVs in blood components (red cells and platelets separately), with the aim of defining appropriate EV isolation methods and parameters/assays considered essential for the assessment of EVs.
Quality control testing and validation approaches for blood components subgroup
Quality Control (QC) tests currently performed on routine blood components and the equipment used to perform tests vary across different jurisdictions, and one of the aims of this subgroup is to develop and propose a set of minimum QC testing requirements. In addition, no standardised validation requirements of QC equipment and assays exist. The subgroup will work on establishing acceptable parameter ranges for QC equipment and defining standardised validation protocols to support the recommendations. These recommendations will be designed to be adaptable to the varying resource capacities of high-, middle-, and low-income country blood services.
Evidence-based practice - developing minimum reporting requirements for publications subgroup
Consistent reporting of the details of blood component manufacturing is often lacking in transfusion medicine and science publications. This limits transparency, reproducibility and meaningful comparison across studies, hindering interpretation and extrapolation of findings. The aim of this subgroup is to address this gap. The output will be the establishment of clear minimum reporting standards for details of blood and blood component manufacturing and storage for scientific publications in transfusion medicine and science. Participants will be required to survey the literature and other sources and participate in drafting these guidelines.
Secondary processing of blood components subgroup
Secondary processing of blood components includes washing, cryopreservation, volume reduction, and irradiation. However, these processing methods are not standardised. Specifically, many centres are moving from gamma-irradiation to X-irradiation, which can be particularly challenging. Participants will review the literature and other sources, to understand current methods and how they might be harmonised
Membership
The Working Party membership includes professionals from 13 different countries.
Activities
The Working Party organises webinars, please find here a link to the most recent webinar recording(s):
