The International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) is a scientific society founded in 1935 which promotes the study of blood transfusion and provides information about the ways in which blood transfusion medicine and science can best serve patients' interests. The society's central office is in Amsterdam, and there are around 1900 members in 103 countries.[1] As of June 2024, the president of the ISBT is Pierre Tiberghien.[2]
ISBT is governed by a voluntary board of 16 directors, representing all WHO regions.[1][2] ISBT has 16 scientific working parties, which are groups of ISBT members promoting science, research and best practice in their specific areas of expertise.[3]
ISBT advocates for standardisation and harmonisation in the field of blood transfusion.[4] The other major impact on the transfusion community is the classification of various human blood group systems under a common nomenclature.[5][6] ISBT's coordination also extends to obtaining donors with rare antigens, a process that often involves international searches in which common terminology is critical.
The ISBT Code of Ethics was developed in response to the World Health Assembly resolution WHA 28.72.[7][8] This resolution called for the establishment of: appropriately governed national blood services; voluntary non-remunerated blood donations (VNRBD); and the promotion of the health of both blood donors and recipients of blood. ISBT works as a non-state actor in official relations with WHO. ISBT collaborated with WHO to produce "Educational modules on clinical use of blood".[9]
History
In a 2015 review of the history of the ISBT, Hans Erik Heier distinguished four phases in the formation of the society:[10]
The formation of the International Society of Blood Transfusion, or Societé International de Transfusion Sanguine, as it was called at the time, was initiated in Rome at a meeting between representatives from 20 nations, the International Red Cross and the Bogdanov institute in Moscow. Blood transfusion was a rather new therapeutic option, and therefore, it was decided that transfusion-specific congresses should be organised to highlight the potential importance of transfusion. To organize these congresses, a society was needed.
After it was decided that a society dedicated to organizing transfusion-related congresses should be created, it did not take long until ISBT was founded. In 1937, the ISBT central office (CO) was established in Paris, led by newly appointed Secretary General Arnault Tzanck. Two years later, in 1939, the activities of the ISBT CO had to be suspended because of the Second World War (WWII).
In the period surrounding WWII, immunohaematology and transfusion technology developed rapidly. Blood banks were created, voluntary blood donations came in great numbers in the allied nations, plasma-transfusion became a standard anti-shock treatment, Rh and Kell systems were discovered, and industrial blood plasma fractionation was developed to produce albumin, which can be used as a substitute for plasma. In 1947, the first post-war congress of the ISBT was organised in Turin, Italy. Here, some specific future goals were laid out to complement the main activity of the Society, the organization of congresses:
Non-commercialisation of blood and derivatives
Oversight and initiation of standardisation of equipment, reagents and nomenclature
Stimulation of the establishment of central transfusion organisations for every country, under the flag of the National Red Cross Society, unless otherwise organised
After the congress in Turin, the society was able to organise congresses and develop without great difficulties for the next forty years, until 1985.
In 1985, the HIV/AIDS epidemic struck transfusion medicine. During that time, the ISBT CO was still located in Paris as a part of the Centre National de Transfusion Sanguine (CNTS) (English: National Centre for Blood Transfusion) as their head, Michel Garretta, was also ISBT Secretary General at the time. In June 1991, he stepped down as head of CNTS, as the HIV/AIDS crisis had become a catastrophe for the transfusion system in France and eventually led to a reorganisation of CNTS in 1991. Subsequently, at the ISBT Congress in Hong Kong it was decided that ISBT could no longer be linked to CNTS, ruling out Garretta's succession of a French colleague. Harold Gunson, who was President of ISBT in 1991, agreed to take on a second role as acting Secretary General. Together with CNTS, and ISBT Secretary Claudine Hossenlopp, he supervised the move of the CO from Paris to Manchester, UK. In 1994, he resigned from his post as blood centre director in Manchester and moved the CO to Lancaster, into his own home. He upheld the CO together with his wife until 1999. The end of Gunson's term meant having to find a new location for the CO, and a new Secretary General.
In 1999, the new location for the ISBT CO was Amsterdam, where it became a part of professional congress organiser (PCO) Eurocongress. Paul Strengers, a doctor at Sanquin Blood Supply, took up the role of Secretary General. A new vision for the 2002–2006 period of ISBT was created by the executive committee, focusing on developing ISBT into an umbrella organization, improving communication with the membership, educational and scientific activities, and professionalizing the CO. In the coming ten years, the society worked to achieve these goals, with Strengers to remain Secretary General for that period. Eurocongress organised ISBT congresses together with the ISBT CO and local organizing committees. The help of Eurocongress took away economic risks attached to congresses, as they were able to provide professional assistance and detailed advice. As the CO had moved to a different country, the ISBT statutes and by-laws were also updated and adapted to Dutch law.
The reformations made in the previous years had led to an increase in workload for the ISBT CO. In order to continue the fulfilment of the strategic plans of the ISBT, a full-time, paid chief executive officer (CEO) was hired in 2010. In 2012, the CO moved to a separate location in Amsterdam as the shared space with Eurocongress did not meet the needs of the expanded office staff. Currently, five paid persons are employed full-time at the CO, managed by CEO Judith Chapman (2010 – today). Congresses are organised by MCI, of which Eurocongress became a part in 2010. In that same year, Martin Olsson was appointed as Scientific Secretary (non-remunerated) to overlook the scientific programming of ISBT congresses and guarantee the high scientific quality. The second Scientific Secretary, Ellen van der Schoot, was in office until 2018. John Semple succeeded Ellen van der Schoot in 2019 through 2021. As of 2024, Jason Ackers is the current ISBT Scientific Secretary until 2025.
A blood type is a classification of blood, based on the presence and absence of antibodies and inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells (RBCs). These antigens may be proteins, carbohydrates, glycoproteins, or glycolipids, depending on the blood group system. Some of these antigens are also present on the surface of other types of cells of various tissues. Several of these red blood cell surface antigens can stem from one allele and collectively form a blood group system.
Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but modern medical practice commonly uses only components of the blood, such as red blood cells, plasma, platelets, and other clotting factors. White blood cells are transfused only in very rare circumstances, since granulocyte transfusion has limited applications. Whole blood has come back into use in the setting of trauma.
Blood plasma is a light amber-colored liquid component of blood in which blood cells are absent, but which contains proteins and other constituents of whole blood in suspension. It makes up about 55% of the body's total blood volume. It is the intravascular part of extracellular fluid. It is mostly water, and contains important dissolved proteins, glucose, clotting factors, electrolytes, hormones, carbon dioxide, and oxygen. It plays a vital role in an intravascular osmotic effect that keeps electrolyte concentration balanced and protects the body from infection and other blood-related disorders.
A blood bank is a center where blood gathered as a result of blood donation is stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusion. The term "blood bank" typically refers to a department of a hospital usually within a clinical pathology laboratory where the storage of blood product occurs and where pre-transfusion and blood compatibility testing is performed. However, it sometimes refers to a collection center, and some hospitals also perform collection. Blood banking includes tasks related to blood collection, processing, testing, separation, and storage.
A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions and/or made into biopharmaceutical medications by a process called fractionation. Donation may be of whole blood, or of specific components directly (apheresis). Blood banks often participate in the collection process as well as the procedures that follow it.
Apheresis is a medical technology in which the blood of a person is passed through an apparatus that separates out one particular constituent and returns the remainder to the circulation. It is thus an extracorporeal therapy.
Plasmapheresis is the removal, treatment, and return or exchange of blood plasma or components thereof from and to the blood circulation. It is thus an extracorporeal therapy, a medical procedure performed outside the body.
The term human blood group systems is defined by the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) as systems in the human species where cell-surface antigens—in particular, those on blood cells—are "controlled at a single gene locus or by two or more very closely linked homologous genes with little or no observable recombination between them", and include the common ABO and Rh (Rhesus) antigen systems, as well as many others; 44 human systems are identified as of 31 December 2022.
The New Zealand Blood Service is the provider of blood services for New Zealand. The service is a Crown entity responsible to New Zealand's Parliament and is governed by a Board appointed by the Minister of Health.
The Associazione Volontari Italiani del Sangue (AVIS) is the major Italian non-profit and charitable organisation for blood donation, bringing together over a million volunteer blood donors across Italy. It is headquartered in Lombardy, Italy.
World Blood Donor Day (WBDD) is held on June 14 each year. The event was organised for the first time in 2004, by four core international organizations: the World Health Organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; the International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations (IFBDO) and the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products, and to thank blood donors for their voluntary, life-saving gifts of blood. World Blood Donor Day is one of 11 official global public health campaigns marked by the World Health Organization (WHO), along with World Health Day, World Chagas Disease Day, World Tuberculosis Day, World Immunization Week, World Patient Safety Day, World Malaria Day, World No Tobacco Day, World Hepatitis Day, World Antimicrobial Awareness Week and World AIDS Day.
Febrile non-hemolytic transfusion reaction (FNHTR) is the most common type of transfusion reaction. It is a benign occurrence with symptoms that include fever but not directly related with hemolysis. It is caused by cytokine release from leukocytes within the donor product as a consequence of white blood cell breakdown .These inflammatory mediators accumulate during the storage of the donated blood, and so the frequency of this reaction increases with the storage length of donated blood. This is in contrast to transfusion-associated acute lung injury, in which the donor plasma has antibodies directed against the recipient HLA antigens, mediating the characteristic lung damage.
The International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations is the international organization representing the voluntary, anonymous and non-remunerated blood donors.
Blood donation in Bangladesh is an activity conducted by several different organisations. As of 2011, about 25% of the nation's blood supply came from voluntary donation, 20–25% from paid donors, and 50–55% from one-time donation for a specific patient.
Fereydoun Ala is an Iranian physician and academician, specialised in internal medicine, haematology, blood transfusion and haemostasis, who established the first Clinical Haematology Department, and the first Haemophilia Centre in Iran at the Tehran University Medical Faculty. He was the founder of the Iranian National Blood Transfusion Service (INBTS), a centralised, state-funded organisation, established in 1974, for the recruitment of healthy, voluntary, non-remunerated blood donors.
Young blood transfusion refers to transfusing blood specifically from a young person into an older one with the intention of creating a health benefit. The efficacy and safety of young blood transfusions for anti-aging purposes remain a subject of debate in the scientific community, with limited clinical evidence in humans. There are also concerns of harm. While some preclinical studies on animals suggest potential benefits, there is a lack of robust clinical evidence to support its use in humans. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in 2019, cautioned "consumers against receiving young donor plasma infusions" stating that they are an "unproven treatment".
There are more than 100 different titles that are used as another name to Transfusion Practitioner (TP). The most common titles used include Transfusion Practitioner, Haemovigilance Officer, Transfusion Safety Officer, Transfusion Nurse, Patient Blood Management (PBM) Practitioner, and PBM Nurse.
Dana Devine is a blood transfusion researcher and the president of AABB. She was the editor-in-chief of Vox Sanguinis from 2012 to 2020. Devine is also the Chief Scientist at Canadian Blood Services and the director of the Centre for Blood Research at the University of British Columbia. In 2015, she was elected as a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. In 2022, she was elected as the President of the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion Collaborative.
The Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization or acronymly IBTO is the highest and only decision-making authority in the field of supply and distribution of healthy blood and blood products in Iran. This organization was established in July 31, 1974.
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