How fit are blood donors?

Abstract

Recruited from the panel of whole blood donors, volunteers under the age of 40 yr were submitted to medical examination before embarking on regular plasmapheresis. Of the first 1000 (9.4%), were found unfit and of these, the majority (8.6%) were also unsuited to whole blood donation according to the selection criteria of the Transfusion Service of the United Kingdom. In the absence of frequent untoward events at blood collection sessions, our findings beg the question—how fit are blood donors and/ or how fit do they need to be?