BACKGROUND: Platelet transfusion refractoriness can develop in patients after multiple transfusions of platelets. Once patients develop platelet refractoriness caused by immunological factors, HLA-matched platelet transfusion is required. However, there is no system to supply HLA-matched platelets in Korea. This study was performed to find way to promote the HLA-matched platelet supply in Korea. METHODS: The status of platelets supply in Korea and the frequency of platelet refractoriness in four university hospitals during 2005 were analyzed. It was obtained that the number of ordered and positive cases for the anti-platelet antibody, HLA antibody screening, and Panel Reactive Antibody test among inpatients of hematological malignancies. And the means to use the HLA-A, B data of unrelated bone marrow donors was searched. RESULTS: Platelet supply increased annually and totally 1,558,395 units were supplied in 2005, from Korean Red Cross blood centers. The frequency of platelet transfusion refractoriness was 12.4%, among them 10.4% showed anti-platelet or anti-HLA antibodies positive. A revision of the related law was required to use the HLA data of unrelated bone marrow donors. CONCLUSION: Immunological factors were observed in about 10% of patients with platelet transfusion refractoriness. HLA-matched platelet could be widely available if the HLA-typed donor registry is established in the Korean Red Cross after the revision of the related law.
Antibodies ; Blood Platelets ; Bone Marrow ; Hematologic Neoplasms ; HLA-A Antigens ; Hospitals, University ; Humans ; Immunologic Factors ; Inpatients ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Mass Screening ; Platelet Transfusion ; Red Cross ; Tissue Donors

A 24-year-old female who have had pseudoxanthoma elasticum for 14 years, showed brownish, umbilicated papules forming serpiginous pattern on the anterior neck, A skin biopsy specimen from the neck lesion revealed epidermal hyperplasia and perforating canal containing basophilic, necrotic materials and degenerated elastic fibers, also showed short, swollen and irregularly clumped elastic fibers in the lower dermis.
Basophils ; Biopsy ; Dermis ; Elastic Tissue ; Female ; Humans ; Hyperplasia ; Neck ; Pseudoxanthoma Elasticum* ; Skin ; Young Adult

BACKGROUND: The granulocyte-specific antigen NA which exist specifically on neutrophils and eosinophils have its antigenic determinant on Fcgamma receptor III. The alloantibodies and autoantibodies against this antigen are responsible for neonatal alloimmune neutropenia, chronic benign autoimmune neutropenia of infancy and transfusion-related acute lung injury. After discovering of biallelic polymorphism of NA antigen, there have been attempts to replace technically cumbersome serotyping methods by DNA-typing. This study was performed to investigate the genotype frequency of NA antigen In Koreans by DNA typing. METHODS: Using genomic DNA extracted from venous blood of 200 Koreans, genotype of NA antigen system was determined through polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP), and the frequency was compared with previous studies. The NA genotypes of seven individuals were compared with their known phenotypes. RESULTS: The genotype frequencies of NA1+NA2-, NA1+NA2+, and NA1-NA2+ were 28.5%, 59.0%, and 12.5% respectively. The gene frequencies calculated from genotype frequencies were 0.58 and 0.42 for NA1 and NA2 respectively. The NA genotypes of seven individuals were correlated precisely with their phenotypes. CONCLUSION: The gene frequency of NA1 in Koreans was higher than that of Caucasian. The genotype frequencies of NA antigen in Koreans were similar to those of the Japanese and Chinese. This study will serve as a basic data for the study of the patients with diseases associated with granulocyte-specific antigens in Koreans.
Acute Lung Injury ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Autoantibodies ; DNA ; DNA Fingerprinting ; Eosinophils ; Gene Frequency ; Genotype* ; Humans ; Isoantibodies ; Neutropenia ; Neutrophils ; Phenotype ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Serotyping

The prevalence of dermographism in the general population of Korea was studied using a dermographic tester on 1, 074 persons(M: 489, F: 585, M/F= 1/l. 2). The result was summarized as follows: 1. The prevalence of dermographism from the pressure of 4, 800 Gm/sq. cm (pressure 2) was 6. 7%. 2. There were no significant difference in the prevalence between male(6.3%) and female(7%) (p>0. 1). 3, The peak age group of dermographism was third(9.4%), fourth and second decades in decreasing order.
Humans ; Korea ; Prevalence*

In 2023, blood donations from registered donors at the Korean Red Cross Blood Centers accounted for 72.6% of blood donations from the Korean Red Cross, helping secure blood equivalent to 65.9% of entire blood donations, 87.6% of plasmapheresis, and 95.1% of platelets component donations. The number of newly registered blood donors increased from 94,998 in 2017 to 218,767 in 2023, and 1,928,053 donors were registered as of December 2023. The age distribution of registered blood donors showed that teenagers and people in their 20s accounted for approximately 70% of the total. Nevertheless, additional research on the blood donation status according to the age of new and cumulative registered blood donors is needed to manage blood donation resources.

In 2023, blood donations from registered donors at the Korean Red Cross Blood Centers accounted for 72.6% of blood donations from the Korean Red Cross, helping secure blood equivalent to 65.9% of entire blood donations, 87.6% of plasmapheresis, and 95.1% of platelets component donations. The number of newly registered blood donors increased from 94,998 in 2017 to 218,767 in 2023, and 1,928,053 donors were registered as of December 2023. The age distribution of registered blood donors showed that teenagers and people in their 20s accounted for approximately 70% of the total. Nevertheless, additional research on the blood donation status according to the age of new and cumulative registered blood donors is needed to manage blood donation resources.

In 2023, blood donations from registered donors at the Korean Red Cross Blood Centers accounted for 72.6% of blood donations from the Korean Red Cross, helping secure blood equivalent to 65.9% of entire blood donations, 87.6% of plasmapheresis, and 95.1% of platelets component donations. The number of newly registered blood donors increased from 94,998 in 2017 to 218,767 in 2023, and 1,928,053 donors were registered as of December 2023. The age distribution of registered blood donors showed that teenagers and people in their 20s accounted for approximately 70% of the total. Nevertheless, additional research on the blood donation status according to the age of new and cumulative registered blood donors is needed to manage blood donation resources.

In 2023, blood donations from registered donors at the Korean Red Cross Blood Centers accounted for 72.6% of blood donations from the Korean Red Cross, helping secure blood equivalent to 65.9% of entire blood donations, 87.6% of plasmapheresis, and 95.1% of platelets component donations. The number of newly registered blood donors increased from 94,998 in 2017 to 218,767 in 2023, and 1,928,053 donors were registered as of December 2023. The age distribution of registered blood donors showed that teenagers and people in their 20s accounted for approximately 70% of the total. Nevertheless, additional research on the blood donation status according to the age of new and cumulative registered blood donors is needed to manage blood donation resources.

BACKGROUND: The usefulness of the alanine aminotransferase (ALT) test has been questioned after the introduction of anti-Hepatitis C virus (HCV) screening and the HCV nucleic acid test (NAT). A major proportion of the blood discarded according to a positive screening test is composed of ALT-high blood. This study was performed to investigate the usefulness of the ALT test. METHODS: The number of donors with a high ALT level was analyzed using the 2007 database of 2,028,684 donors. The HBsAg and anti-HCV positive donors were grouped into the ALT<65 group, the ALT=65~89 group and the ALT> or =90 IU/L group. Anti-HBc, anti-HBs and HBV DNA tests were performed for 402 high-ALT samples. RESULTS: A total of 30,077 (1.5%) donors had an ALT> or =65 IU/L, and 18,594 (61.8%) of them had an ALT of 65~89 IU/L. The mean ages of the groups with ALT<65, 65~89 and > or =90 IU/L were 24, 26 and 25 years, respectively and HBsAg was positive in 0.13, 0.36 and 0.88%, respectively, and anti-HCV was positive in 0.30, 0.39 and 0.52%, respectively. HBV DNA was not detected in the 402 samples with an ALT> or =65 IU/L and a negative HBsAg test. CONCLUSION: Based on an analysis of a donor databases, the HBV infection rates were higher in blood donors with high ALT. Although HBV DNA was not detected in the high-ALT samples with negative HBsAg, because of the high HBsAg positivity in the high-ALT samples, it would be desirable to retain the ALT screening test when considering the possibility of false negative reactions of the current hepatitis B screening test.
Alanine ; Alanine Transaminase ; Blood Donors ; DNA ; False Negative Reactions ; Hepatitis B ; Hepatitis B Surface Antigens ; Humans ; Mass Screening ; Tissue Donors ; Viruses

BACKGROUND: We evaluated the efficacy of two chemiluminescence immunoassays that detect treponemal antibodies, Centaur Syphilis and Immulite Syphilis, in comparison with Mediace Treponema pallidum latex agglutination (TPLA). METHODS: The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, we tested 1,147 serum samples that were sequentially submitted for routine syphilis serology. In the second phase, we tested a panel of 119 frozen serum samples that had previously tested positive by Mediace RPR. The kappa value, total agreement percentage, and sensitivity and specificity were analyzed. RESULTS: Of the 1,147 random samples, 24 (2.09%) tested positive with Centaur Syphilis, 16 (1.39%) with Immulite Syphilis, and 19 (1.66%) with Mediace TPLA. Of the 119 Mediace RPR-positive samples, 103 (86.6%) tested positive with Centaur Syphilis, 101 (84.9%%) with Immulite Syphilis, and 105 (88.2%) with Mediace TPLA. The percent agreements (kappa values) were 98.8% (0.934) between Centaur Syphilis and Mediace TPLA, 99.0% (0.94) between Immulite Syphilis and Mediace TPLA, and 99.2% (0.955) between Centaur Syphilis and Immulite Syphilis. To measure the sensitivity and specificity of each treponemal test, samples showing agreement in three or four of the tests (three treponemal tests and Mediace-RPR) were regarded as true positive (n=117) or true negative (n=1,142). The respective values for sensitivity and specificity were 100% and 99.6% for Centaur Syphilis, 98.3% and 100% for Immulite Syphilis, and 99.2% and 99.7% for Mediace TPLA. CONCLUSIONS: Results from the three treponemal assays were in good agreement. Greater sensitivity of Centaur Syphilis and greater specificity of Immulite Syphilis were suggested.
Agglutination ; Antibodies* ; Immunoassay ; Latex ; Luminescence ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Syphilis* ; Treponema pallidum