Is There a Problem of Immunodeficiency in Long-Term Plateletpheresis Donors?

In the last few years, recommendations, guidelines, and laws have all served as important motivators, not just for improving the quality of medical products such as blood components but also for carefully and comprehensively guaranteeing the safety of blood donors. The German Guidelines for the Collection of Blood and Blood Components from 2000 [1] allow 26 thrombocytaphereses per year without the need for a threepart white blood cell (WBC) differentiation, whereas the apheresis frequency is limited to 24 procedures in the yet to be updated FDA guidelines from 1988 [2] which point out the magnitude of potential risks, especially lymphocyte depletion. Nowadays, this old-fashioned recommendation can only be understood by bearing in mind that the first generation of cell separators generated platelet concentrates with WBC contaminations in the order of 109 cells per concentrate [3]. Over the last three decades, the question of immune deficiency arising from frequent blood donations has been raised repeatedly. The paper of Carrero et al. [4] published in this issue also deals with the theme of analyzing the cellular immune status amongst thrombocytapheresis donors. These results and many other published contributions provide clear and definitive evidence that a slight loss of leukocytes, especially lymphocytes, does not impair the donor’s immune system in its