Trace back of thalassemic patients with positive HCV markers to their donors in Adult Thalassemia Center

Background and ObjectivesTransfusion transmitted infection is one of the most important transfusion reactions. In this study, we tried to find new cases of HCV in thalassemic patients having referred to Adult Thalassemia Clinic after 1996 and to trace them back for sources of infection. Materials and MethodsThis was a descriptive study in which all patients were studied; census method of data collection was used. Those patients with no test record before 1996 that appaeared to be positive in their first test attempt were not considered a new HCV positive case. The new cases were just those whose past negative HCV Ab test results changed into positive in new test. For data analysis, SPSS version 14 was used. ResultsOut of 395 file records, 274(69.4%) were thalassemia major, and 110 (27.8%) intermediate. We had 109 HCV positive cases (27.5%) out of whom 21 were those infected after 1996. Out of the latter, 5 had complete medical records by which 54 blood donors were identified; however, only 37 (68.5%) were traced and found to be negative for HCV Ab. Noteworthy that 81% of these safe donors were shown to be repeated donors. ConclusionSince there had been one or more donors whose donations had been administered to each patient with no possibility for them to be traced, we were not able to prove the transmission of HCV from donors to recipients. Other possibilities including hospital transmission, patient to patient transmission, and transmission by nurses involved in blood administration should be taken into account.