Pathogen Inactivation Technologies: The Advent of Pathogen-Reduced Blood Components to Reduce Blood Safety Risk

Abstract

Pathogen inactivation technologies represent a shift in blood safety from a reactive approach to a proactive protective strategy. Commercially available technologies demonstrate effective killing of most viruses, bacteria, and parasites and are capable of inactivating passenger leukocytes in blood products. The use of pathogen inactivation causes a decrease in the parameters of products that can be readily measured in laboratory assays but that do not seem to cause any alteration in hemostatic effect of plasma or platelet transfusions. Effort needs to be made to further develop these technologies so that the negative quality impact is ameliorated without reducing the pathogen inactivation effectiveness.

Keywords: Blood safety; Blood transfusion; Pathogen inactivation; Pathogen reduction technology.