Apheretic platelets are better quality blood components which reduce donor exposure and chances of TTIs to transfusion recipients when compared to the whole blood derived components. Though safe, these apheretic donations are associated with donor adverse events. We evaluated the incidence of such adverse events associated with the modern apheresis procedures that would provide an insight as well as help formulating preventive steps to avoid frequent occurrences of such events. This prospective audit-based observational study was conducted over 1 year. Donors for plateletpheresis were selected as per the standard operating procedure of the Apheresis Lab. The apheresis procedures were done on the MCS+ (Haemonetics Corp.), Trima Accel (Terumo BCT) and COM.TEC (Fresenius Kabi AG). 1740 apheresis procedures were performed, out of which 1708 were plateletpheresis and 32 therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) procedures for 7 patients. A total of 102 adverse events were noted; of which, 80 (78.43 %) events were associated with donors, 15 (14.71 %) were owed to equipment related problems and 7 (6.86 %) were technical aberrations. All the events associated with donors were mild. No adverse events were reported with any of the 32 TPEs. Apheresis procedures are associated with adverse events which can be reduced by meticulous donor-vigilance, superior training modules for the technical personnel and continued supervision of experienced transfusion medicine specialists. Continued efforts towards making the donor's experience with apheresis more pleasant give a forward thrust to the noble vision of preparing a voluntary apheresis donor pool in India.
Keywords: Adverse events; Apheresis; Citrate effects; Vaso-vagal reactions.