In film and television dramas, people can often see a scene where a child is in urgent need of blood transfusion in a car accident. At this time, the hospital just runs out of this blood type, and the parents of the child will tell the doctor to use their blood to save the emergency. Seeing more such scenes, the audience left the wrong idea that blood transfusion can be done between immediate family members. In fact, blood transfusion between immediate family members will produce a graft-versus-host disease, so it is not recommended.

Pathogenesis of graft-versus-host disease

According to China Women's Daily, the pathogenesis of graft-versus-host disease mainly refers to the infusion of immunocompetent lymphocytes into patients, which will attack their immune system and affect their stomach, liver and hematopoietic system. This cell is even more harmful to the body than AIDS.

Why does blood transfusion between immediate family members produce transfusion-related graft-versus-host disease?

Sichuan Online reported that due to the high similarity of antigens between relatives, when the immunity of the recipient, that is, the host, is seriously lacking or suppressed, there will be a lack of recognition of similar lymphocytes of foreign immediate family members. At this time, foreign lymphocytes will be "anti-customer-oriented" and attack the host's own tissues and organs, thus causing fatal complications, namely transfusion-related graft-versus-host disease.

According to Shandong Business Daily, the incidence of this disease is not high, about one in ten thousand to one in ten thousand. But once it happens, the mortality rate is quite high, reaching 80% to 90%. This complication occurred about 10 to 14 days after blood transfusion. At first, fever and rash were more common, and finally, they died of infection.

Blood bag for blood transfusion (Source: Hangzhou Daily)

Can't immediate family members donate blood and help each other under any circumstances?

With the development of science and technology, active immune cells can be killed by irradiation technology, so that they will no longer produce immune blood activity after being imported into the body. Although blood transfusion between immediate family members can avoid graft-versus-host disease in this way, direct blood transfusion between immediate family members is still not recommended. When you really need blood transfusion, you should lose as little as possible. Choose components during blood transfusion, and only transfuse red blood cells when transfusing red blood cells; When there is no shortage of plasma, there will be no plasma loss; If you want to lose platelets, lose platelets.

In addition, if the pathogen is not detected, the fresh blood just collected is not safe and cannot be directly used by patients, so it is not realistic to roll up your sleeves and donate blood in the hospital in TV series. Everyone should master the common sense of blood transfusion, and don't be misled by some clips in film and television dramas. (Cao Yahui)

This article is scientifically checked by Yao Zhen, chief physician of internal medicine of Shougang General Hospital.