There are some emergency situations when untested fresh blood should be transfused. Emergency blood donor tests (EBDT) have been done as an effort to protect these blood recipients from contracting transfusion associated infections in Seoul
National
University Hospital. EBDT includes HBsAg, anti-HIV, STS, and ALT test. Anti-HCV test is not included because of the absence of appropriate test kit. A total of 534 tests have been done from June 1993 to August 1995. Among these, 495 tests (92.7%)
have
been done for blood donor screening, and 39 tests (7.3%) for emergency organ transplantation. Sensitivity and specificiy of the emergency HBsAg test were 69% and 98%, respectively. There were two RPR reactive blood donors, but no anti-HIV
positive
cases. Among 458 blood donors, 37 donors (8.1%) showed increased ALT level (>45IU/L). The percent of agreement in HBsAg, elevated ALT and anti-HIV tests between emergent and routine blood donor tests, were 97.0%, 98.9% and 100%, respectively.
Although false positive and false negative EBDT result may is useful, although limited. We think that EBDT is useful in protecting blood recipient from transfusion associated infections.
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