TRALI Consensus Recommendations Published in AABB’s Transfusion Journal
Canadian Blood Services co-hosted conference as part of public consultation

Ottawa, December 14, 2004 – The consensus panel statement of a conference entitled “Towards an Understanding of TRALI” hosted by Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec has been published in the December issue of the American Association of Blood Banks’s Transfusion journal.

Transfusion-Related Acute Lung Injury, or TRALI, is an uncommon clinical complication of allogeneic blood transfusion. Despite its increasing recognition over the past five years, much about TRALI remains poorly understood and controversial. Outstanding issues include the lack of a universally accepted case definition, uncertainty about incidence and pathogenesis, management of donors who are associated with TRALI and reducing the risk of TRALI for recipients of blood products. In 2001, the U.S. FDA reported TRALI to be the third leading cause of transfusion-related deaths. In Canada however, there have been no deaths directly attributed to TRALI in the last 10 years.

To examine these issues, a Consensus Conference was convened in Toronto, Canada on April 1 and 2, 2004 entitled “Towards an Understanding of TRALI”. The conference, featuring many of the world’s leading experts in TRALI, was sponsored by Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec, with support from the International Society of Blood Transfusion’s Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) subcommittee.

“We hope that the statement of the consensus panel will raise awareness of TRALI and support the development of policies for blood programs both in Canada and internationally,” said Dr. Graham Sher, Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Blood Services. “This type of public consultation is another example of how Canadian Blood Services draws on the international community to remain at the forefront of issues which affect blood operators around the world.”

The Consensus Conference represents the sixth such consultation that Canadian Blood Services has hosted and the first on the subject of TRALI.

NOTE: A full text article and PDF of the Statement of Consensus Panel is available for purchase on the Transfusion web site. Click on the following link to learn more: www.blackwell-synergy.com.

About Canadian Blood Services
Canadian Blood Services is a national, not-for-profit charitable organization that manages the blood supply in all provinces and territories outside of Quebec and oversees the country's Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry. Canadian Blood Services operates 42 permanent collection sites and more than 15,000 donor clinics annually. The Provincial and Territorial Ministers of Health provide operational funding to Canadian Blood Services. The federal government, through Health Canada, is responsible for regulating the blood system. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.bloodservices.ca.

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