Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2013 Apr;27(4):861-5.
doi: 10.1038/leu.2012.301. Epub 2012 Oct 17.

A prospective, randomized, double-blind study, comparing unirradiated to irradiated white blood cell transfusions in acute leukemia patients

E J Freireich  1 , B Lichtiger, G Mattiuzzi, F Martinez, V Reddy, J Kyle Wathen
Affiliations
Free PMC article
Randomized Controlled Trial

A prospective, randomized, double-blind study, comparing unirradiated to irradiated white blood cell transfusions in acute leukemia patients

E J Freireich et al. Leukemia. 2013 Apr.
Free PMC article

Abstract

A prospective, randomized double-blind study comparing the effects of irradiated and unirradiated white blood cells was conducted in 108 acute leukemia patients with life-threatening infections, refractory to antibiotics. The study demonstrated no significant improvement in 30-day survival or overall survival. Transfusion of unirradiated white cells did not compromise the patient's opportunity to undergo allogeneic stem cell transplant, nor the success rate or overall survival after allogeneic transplant. The important positive finding in this study was that the unirradiated white cells produced a significantly higher increment in circulating granulocytes and in a higher proportion of patients granulocyte count exceeded 1000 per microliter, approaching normal concentrations. The increase in the number and the improved survival of the unirradiated granulocytes suggest that this procedure might potentially be a method to improve the utility of granulocyte transfusions and merits further investigation. The study demonstrated non-inferiority for unirradiated white cells. There were no harmful effects such as graft-versus-host disease, indicating that such studies would be safe to conduct in the future.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overall survival of patients following onset of WBC transfusions.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Survival of patients following onset of WBC transfusions, censored at time of transplant.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Post-transfusion increments in circulating granulocytes (1000s/microliter).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Freireich EJ. Origins of platelet transfusion therapy. Transfus Med Rev. 2011;25:252–256. - PubMed
    1. Bodey GP, Buckley M, Sathe YS, Freireich EJ. Quantitative relationships between circulating leukocytes and infection in patients with acute leukemia. Ann Intern Med. 1966;64:328–340. - PubMed
    1. Freireich EJ. Leukocyte transfusion and the development of the continuous-flow blood cell separator. Transfus Med Rev. 2011;25:344–350. - PubMed
    1. Anderson KC, Weinstein HJ. Transfusion-associated graft-versus-host disease. N Engl J Med. 1990;323:315–321. - PubMed
    1. Shivdasani RA, Haluska FG, Dock NL, Dover JS, Kineke EJ, Anderson KC. Brief report: graft-versus-host disease associated with transfusion of blood from unrelated HLA-homozygous donors. N Engl J Med. 1993;328:766–770. - PubMed

Publication types