Bloody big data - Haemovigilance using routinely collected healthcare data | The International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT)

19 Jun 2023

This session was held on June 19 2023, during the 33rd Regional ISBT Congress that was held in Gothenburg, Sweden, from June 17-21.

The Bridging Vein to Vein with Big Data session included the following presentations:

1. Shuoyan Ning: Transfusion-related immune modulation and the use of big data analytics
2. Jingcheng Zhao: Bloody big data - Haemovigilance using routinely collected healthcare data
3. Angelo D'alessandro: Chemical individuality of the blood donor as gleaned by high-throughput metabolomics of over 13,000 end of storage red blood cell samples and multi-omics analyses of 643 recalled donors
4. Abdirahaman Musa Jibrail: Bridging the Gap Geospatial Analysis to Estimate Demand and Unmet Need of Blood Products in Rural Kenya

MODERATORS: Gustaf Edgren and Katja van der Hurk

After the presentation, there was a questions and answers session, which is also included in the recording.

Abstract

Bloody big data: Haemovigilance using routinely collected healthcare data

J Zhao¹, T Dahlén¹, G Edgren¹

¹Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

As blood transfusions are only possible due to the generosity of blood donors but also have an inherent risk for transmitting disease, the safety of both blood donation and transfusion is rigorously controlled. Haemovigilance is the systematic surveillance of adverse events in the entire blood supply chain, stretching from blood donation to transfusion and follow-up care. Although transfusion safety has dramatically improved in recent decades, especially in regard to transfusion-transmitted infections, there are still evidence gaps for many aspects of blood donation and transfusion safety. In a series of studies conducted using the most recent version of the Scandinavian Donations and Transfusions database (SCANDAT3), we piloted how large vein-to-vein databases could be used for large-scale data-driven blood donation and transfusion safety monitoring. In one study, we showed that frequent donation of blood platelets using a widely-used instrument, called the leukoreduction system chamber, is associated with fewer number of T-cells and an increased risk of infections for donors. In another study, we showed that patients transfused with blood from blood donors that subsequently developed multiple spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhages were more likely to develop spontaneous brain bleeds themselves, suggesting possible transfusion-transmission of an agent causing intracerebral haemorrhages. Furthermore, exploiting a natural experiment in blood allocation, we showed that the sex or parity of the blood donor does not affect survival in transfused patients. More recently, we have further developed these methods to study a wider range of possible deleterious effects of blood donation, as well as agnostic data-driven monitoring of possible transfusion-transmitted illnesses. Overall, these studies serve as a collective proof-of-concept that routinely collected health data from healthcare systems and blood banks can be used for haemovigilance.