Donor Iron Deficiency Study - Red Blood Cells From Iron-deficient Donors: Recovery and Storage Quality

Approved for clinical use: 1-gram dose IV - diluted in 500 mL, one pint normal saline.

Salt water IV - 500 mL, one pint normal saline.

Standard process of collecting and storing blood and blood components (approximately 450 mL, or a pint of blood). Following donation, the blood will be leukoreduced, packed, and stored in AS-3 solution.

"The way the FDA determines how good blood is for transfusion is called a radioactive 51-Chromium 24-hour post-transfusion red cell recovery study. The purpose is to measure how many of the transfused red cells are still in circulation (being pumped by the heart through blood vessels) 24 hours after transfusion. In order to measure the percent of red cells that are still in circulation, a small amount of the donated blood will be radioactively labeled. This will be infused in one arm and then blood will be collected from the other arm at different time points to measure how much of the transfused red cells are still in circulation."