Emergencies are a common occurrence
Children hospitalized in Pediatric Oncology clinics undergo many cycles of treatment in order to eradicate the malignant disease from their bodies. The intensity of the treatments is the maximum possible, depending on how many side effects the little patient may face. To deal with the immediate side effects of the treatments, doctors often administer a blood derivative, platelets, which help the blood clot. For this reason, platelet donors are sought.
Searching for platelet donors from Lampsi in emergency cases
Hospital blood donation departments and parents in general take care of finding suitable platelet donors. Unfortunately, there are not always enough platelet donors with the appropriate blood type available. Parents often contact Lampsi. In these urgent cases, Lampsi informs its members about the problem by telephone. These in turn personally inform their social circle about the need to find a suitable platelet donor. In the same way, volunteers who have requested in advance to be included in the information process are also informed. Any potential platelet donors who become aware of this should contact the Hospital blood donation offices by telephone and declare their availability. Usually, two or three donors are enough to cover the urgent needs of a child. The remaining platelet donors can, if they wish, declare themselves available for the future need of the same or another child in blood donation.
What can you do?
If you would like to receive notifications from Lampsi regarding any urgent needs of children for platelets, please call us at 2310 943396 or fill out the contact form at the bottom of the page. This will include you on the list that Lampsi maintains with contact information and blood group of members and volunteers who are interested in becoming platelet donors so that it can contact them regarding the children’s urgent needs.
We also list the following useful telephone numbers:
IPPOKRATEIO HOSPITAL
The plateletpheresis department operates every:
Monday-Wednesday-Friday (8:00-15:00)
For information and appointments, please call during these days at
+30 2313-312607
Address: 49 Konstantinoupoleos Street, Thessaloniki 546 42
AHEPA HOSPITAL
It is recommended to make an appointment by phone in advance.
Contact numbers for the plateletpheresis department: +30 2313303399 and +30 2313303390, morning hours.
Address: St. Kyriakidis 1, Thessaloniki 54636
Frequently asked questions
Blood is a mixture of red and white blood cells, platelets, plasma, and other elements.
Platelet apheresis is a special blood donation procedure that allows you to donate just one component of your blood, platelets – the cells that help stop bleeding. There is an excess of platelets in our blood and many of them can be removed without any side effects to the donor. The removed platelets are restored within a few days.
Until recently, the only way to collect platelets was by separating them from the blood donated by the donor. A small amount of platelets is collected from each unit of whole blood during a blood donation. Today, however, advanced medical equipment known as “cell separators” allows us to collect many more platelets from a single donor. Separators remove the platelets from the blood you donate and return the remaining blood components to you. The whole process is simple, safe and very similar to the usual blood donation process.
The donor lies next to a machine, is venipunctured, and from a small amount of blood that passes through the machine, the platelets are automatically separated. The remaining blood is returned through the same arm back to the donor. Platelet apheresis takes 1-2 hours. The whole process is longer than a regular blood donation because it takes more time to separate and collect the platelets from the other blood components.
The collection is almost always done in the hospital where the young patient is being treated, and if possible a few hours before they are administered. Platelets are not preserved for many days, nor are they easily transported from hospital to hospital. For these reasons, overlapping needs between hospitals is much more difficult (if not impossible) than for whole blood.
Any healthy person aged 18 to 50. To become a platelet donor, you must have given blood, without any problems, at least once. The requirements that platelet donors must meet are almost the same as those of whole blood donors. You must be in perfect health, weigh more than 50 kg, not take any chronic medication, and have not taken aspirin, other antiplatelet or anti-inflammatory drugs in the last 5-6 days. In addition, you must have “good veins”, and a platelet count above a certain limit. Also, before someone donates platelets, they must come to the Blood Donation Center and give a blood sample for laboratory tests 4-5 days before the platelets are collected, so that they can be administered immediately after they are collected.
Women with more than two pregnancies and heterozygotes for sickle cell anemia (about 1% of Greeks) should not donate platelets.
There is always the case that a donor does all the preliminary blood tests, but ultimately is not asked to donate platelets at all, if the patient’s condition improves in the meantime. Unfortunately, if there is no specific need for a specific child-recipient, platelets are never collected, as platelets are not stored for more than 5-7 days (usually 5), while the collection and processing supplies are very expensive. This may seem like unnecessary hassle on the part of the donor, but on the part of the little recipient and his parents it gives a feeling of relative security as to not being exposed to the risk of thrombocytopenia and spontaneous internal bleeding. This alone is worth the effort.
Platelet collection, like regular blood donation, is not painful. You will only feel a slight sting when the needle enters the vein in your arm.
Platelet ablation is very safe.
There is no risk of infection because the entire procedure is performed in a closed and sterile circuit. The hematocrit does not drop because the red blood cells are returned to the donor, so there is no risk of dizziness or fainting or risk of iron deficiency. If numbness occurs due to the anticoagulant, it is easily and quickly treated by taking calcium. You will be supervised by specialized personnel throughout the procedure.
It also depends on when and what other blood product you donated. There should be at least two days between two platelet transfusions (15 days is usual), if necessary. No more than two platelet transfusions may be performed in one week, nor more than 24-26 platelet transfusions in one year.
Yes, as long as it has been one month since you last donated platelets. If you have recently donated blood and are asked to donate platelets, you can, as long as it has been one to two months since you last donated blood.
Every time you donate blood, someone or some people benefit. But this is even more true for donating platelets.
Donating platelets helps children who have thrombocytopenia due to serious health problems such as leukemia, cancer, or aplastic anemia. Often, the survival of these patients depends on platelet transfusions.
It really helps save a child’s life.
Is there a more serious reason to become a platelet donor?
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