Blood Transfusions
What is a blood transfusion?
A blood transfusion is a medical procedure in which the patient receives additional blood which was donated to the blood bank. The procedure is usually carried when the patient has lost a lot of blood in a traumatic incident, such as a car accident or a shooting, for example. However, as with almost all medical procedures, there is a degree of risk involved; and even though the risks can be minimalised, they can not be completely removed from the equation.
A blood transfusion is a medical procedure in which the patient receives additional blood which was donated to the blood bank. The procedure is usually carried when the patient has lost a lot of blood in a traumatic incident, such as a car accident or a shooting, for example. However, as with almost all medical procedures, there is a degree of risk involved; and even though the risks can be minimalised, they can not be completely removed from the equation.
What components of the immune system are involved in the abnormal response of the body and describe what the components do to trigger this response?
If the wrong blood type is received in the transfusion, then the body will treat the new-found donor cells as threats. The reason that the body reacts that way is because the blood cells that are being received would have anti-bodies that do not match the anti-bodies on the initial cells.
When these donor-cells are detected by T-Helper Cells, alarm bells ring and cytokines are released. Then the typical T-helper response takes its course while B cells create plasma cells to attack the donor cells. There are 2 outcomes of this reaction: 1. best case scenario, the donor cells are destroyed in the spleen. 2, Worst case scenario, the cells clump up and clog the circulatory system, resulting in a stroke or death.
Another abnormal response could be an allergic reaction to the blood or it's contents, in which case, any allergic response up to and including anaphylactic shock is a possibility.
If the wrong blood type is received in the transfusion, then the body will treat the new-found donor cells as threats. The reason that the body reacts that way is because the blood cells that are being received would have anti-bodies that do not match the anti-bodies on the initial cells.
When these donor-cells are detected by T-Helper Cells, alarm bells ring and cytokines are released. Then the typical T-helper response takes its course while B cells create plasma cells to attack the donor cells. There are 2 outcomes of this reaction: 1. best case scenario, the donor cells are destroyed in the spleen. 2, Worst case scenario, the cells clump up and clog the circulatory system, resulting in a stroke or death.
Another abnormal response could be an allergic reaction to the blood or it's contents, in which case, any allergic response up to and including anaphylactic shock is a possibility.
What treatments are available if any to modulate the immune system?
While there aren't any well known methods to modulate the immune system's response to blood transfusions, there seems to be evidence that a blood transfusion can modulate or even suppress the immune system temporarily. Transfusion-related immunomodulation, or TRIM, is an emerging concept to explain the "proinflammatory or immunosuppressive effects that may increase morbidity in at least some patient groups" post-transfusion. If this research were to progress, then there would be a chance that the variables could be switched around so to change the immune system pre-transfusion in order to suppress any ill-effects that the transfusion could bring. The dangers of immune modulation is that if you were to suppress the immune system's ability to target antibodies that do not match it's own, other antibodies could sneak in while the drug is in effect. Another question on the matter is: would the drug become a permanent prescription? could the patient be phased off the drug? what complications could persist? until the adequate testing has taken place, the medical world is very much in the dark in this field.