The "passionate couple" has been donating blood for 20 years! In fact, there is more than one way to donate blood

Expert of this article: Song Yingwei, Chief Technician of Transfusion Medicine Department, First Medical Center, PLA General Hospital

Reviewer of this article: Wang Deqing, Director of the Department of Transfusion Medicine, First Medical Center, PLA General Hospital, PhD Supervisor

On January 12, 2022, the topic #Husband secretly donated blood and his wife found out and accompanied him to donate blood for 20 years# became a hot search, sparking heated discussions among netizens.

The protagonist of the topic, Wan Jianlin, is an ordinary worker at a steel plant in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Twenty years ago, he donated blood for the first time, but he did not dare to tell his wife, Li Yuelan, for fear that she would worry. He hid the souvenirs every time he came back from donating blood. After his wife found out that her husband had "secretly" donated blood, she also started to donate blood at the blood station regularly with her husband.

Over the past 20 years, the couple has donated whole blood and platelets 316 times, with a total of 109,600 ml. Based on the calculation that 200 ml of blood is needed to save one patient, this is enough to save 550 people. Now, the couple still insists on donating blood together. They said: We are just ordinary people, and it is a very happy thing to be able to help others.

While being touched, attentive netizens also discovered a small detail: the blood donated by the two people was whole blood and platelet collection. Are there different ways to donate blood? What is the difference between donating whole blood and donating blood components?

In addition to whole blood, you can also donate blood components

With the improvement of social civilization and the continuous innovation of blood collection technology, more and more people are aware of the importance of blood to life, and more and more people are joining the ranks of blood donation.

Whole blood donation

When we usually talk about blood donation, most of the time we mean donating "whole blood", that is, donating all the components of blood at one time. The most common blood donation volume is 200ml, 300ml or 400ml. It takes about 3-6 minutes from puncture to the end of blood donation.

Blood donation

"Blood component donation" refers to donating a certain (or several) blood components. The blood is punctured through a needle in one arm, and the blood is centrifuged in a blood cell separator in a disposable consumable tube to separate the required blood component (mainly platelets in China), and the other blood components are returned to the blood donor. Compared with donating whole blood, donating blood components requires an extracorporeal treatment process and a return process, so the blood collection time will be slightly longer, about 40-90 minutes.

Compared to whole blood donation, it has a shorter recovery period and is more fulfilling for the donor.

The new "Beijing Blood Donation Regulations" which will be implemented on February 1, 2022 also proposes: encouraging healthy and appropriate individuals of appropriate age to donate blood multiple times and regularly, and encouraging donations of single-donor platelets and other component blood.

Currently, most of us donate whole blood and do not have a deep understanding of donating blood components. In fact, in clinical practice, platelet transfusion is one of the important treatment methods for patients with leukemia, malignant tumors, etc.

Will blood component donation affect the health of the blood donor?

Before blood collection, the blood collection institution will conduct a strict physical examination on the blood donor. The platelet count of the blood donor must be within the donation requirements, and it can be ensured that the platelet count after collection remains within the normal reference value.

The average life span of platelets in normal human blood circulation is about 7 to 14 days, and donated platelets can return to the level before collection within 72 hours. At the same time, except for the donated platelets, the rest of the blood components have been returned to the donor before the collection is completed, so there will be no adverse effects on the donor's body.

Because donating platelets has less impact on the donor's body, the interval between donating platelets is shorter than that between donating whole blood. The time interval between two donations of machine-harvested platelets should be no less than 2 weeks and no more than 24 times a year.

Why do you need to make an appointment in advance to donate platelet collection?

Platelets have a short shelf life and are not easy to store. They can only be stored for 5 days at 20-24°C with shaking. Therefore, blood collection institutions often collect blood on demand based on the application of clinical patients. In order to ensure that the blood donated selflessly by each blood donor can be reasonably used and not wasted, blood collection institutions need to reasonably arrange the number of donors of each blood type every day according to clinical needs.

In addition, because the donation of platelets requires the use of special blood collection equipment and the collection process is time-consuming, blood collection institutions must arrange blood donors reasonably according to the plan and reasonably match blood donors and blood collection equipment. This can not only avoid crowding of blood donors, but also reduce the waiting time of blood donors.

Every time you roll up your sleeves to donate blood, someone will be reborn. It could be a child suffering from leukemia, or a pregnant mother who is bleeding heavily on the operating table... We need more ordinary heroes like Wan Jianlin and Li Yuelan who can donate blood regularly. Let's donate more blood and save more lives together!

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