Blood Cells

Introduction
What is Blood?
56 Facts About Blood
Blood and Blood Components
Diseases of the Red Blood Cells
Diseases of the White Blood Cells
Diseases of the Clotting System

1. Anyone in good health, at least 17 years old, and at least 110 pounds may donate blood every 56 days, or every two months. (In some states, 16-year-olds may donate. There is no upper age limit.)
2. 4.5 million: the number of American lives saved each year by blood transfusions.
3. 38,000 pints: amount of donated blood used each day in the United States.
4. Someone needs blood every two seconds.
5. About 1 in 5 people entering a hospital needs blood.
6. Three: the number of lives saved by one pint of donated blood.
7. Ten pints: amount of blood in the body of an average adult.
8. One unit of blood is roughly the equivalent of one pint.
9. Blood makes up about 7 percent of your body's weight.
10. A newborn baby has about one cup of blood in his body.
11. 3.4 pints: the average red blood cell transfusion.
12. Blood fights infection and helps heal wounds.
13. Four main blood types: A, B, AB and O. AB is the universal recipient, O negative is the universal donor.
14. Blood centers often run short of types O and B blood.
15. Shortages of all blood types happen during the summer and winter holidays.
16. If all blood donors gave 2 to 4 times a year, it would help prevent blood shortages.
17. 48 gallons: amount of blood you could donate if you begin at age 17 and donate every 56 days until you reach 76 years old.
18. Three gallons of blood is used every minute in the United States.
19. Four steps to donate blood: medical history, quick physical, donation and snacks.
20. The actual blood donation usually takes less than 10 minutes. The entire process – from the time you sign in to the time you leave – takes about an hour.
21. Giving blood will not decrease your strength.
22. You cannot get AIDS or any other infectious disease by donating blood.
23. Thirteen tests (11 for infectious diseases) are performed on each unit of donated blood.
24. Any company, community organization, place of worship or individual may contact their local community blood center to host a blood drive.
25. People donate blood out of a sense of duty and community spirit, not to make money. They are not paid for their donation.
26. Much of today's medical care depends on a steady supply of blood from healthy donors.
27. One unit of blood can be separated into several components: red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, platelets and cryoprecipitate.
28. Red blood cells carry oxygen to the body's organs and tissue.
29. One billion: the number of red blood cells in two to three drops of blood.
30. Red blood cells live about 120 days in the circulatory system.
31. Platelets support blood clotting and give those with leukemia and other cancers a chance to live.
32. Apheresis (a-fer-EE-sis) is a special kind of blood donation that allows a donor to give specific blood components, such as platelets.
33. 42 days: the shelf life of donated red blood cells.
34. Five days: the shelf life of donated platelets.
35. One year: the shelf life of frozen plasma.
36. Plasma is a pale yellow mixture of water, proteins and salts.
37. Plasma, which is 90 percent water, constitutes 55 percent of blood volume.
38. Healthy bone marrow makes a constant supply of red cells, plasma and platelets.
39. Car accident and blood loss victims can need transfusions of 50 pints or more of red blood cells.
40. Bone marrow transplant patients need platelet donations from about 120 people and red blood cells from about 20 people.
41. Severe burn victims can need 20 units of platelets during their treatment.
42. Children being treated for cancer, premature infants and children having heart surgery need blood and platelets from donors of all types.
43. Anemic patients need blood transfusions to increase their iron levels.
44. Cancer, transplant and trauma patients, and patients undergoing open-heart surgery require platelet transfusions to survive.
45. Sickle cell disease is an inherited disease that affects more than 80,000 people in the United States, 98 percent of whom are of African descent. Some patients with complications from severe sickle cell disease receive blood transfusions every month – up to 4 pints at a time.
46. 500,000: the number of Americans who donated blood in the days following the September 11 attacks.
47. Females receive 53 percent of blood transfusions; males receive 47 percent.
48. 94 percent of blood donors are registered voters.
49. 60 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood – only 5 percent do.
50. 17 percent of non-donors cite "never thought about it" as the main reason for not giving, while 15 percent say they're too busy. The #1 reason donors say they give is because they "want to help others."
51. After donating blood, you replace these red blood cells within four weeks. It takes eight weeks to restore the iron lost after donating.
52. Granulocytes, a type of white blood cell, roll along blood vessel walls in search of bacteria to eat.
53. White cells are the body's primary defense against infection.
54. There is no substitute for human blood.
55. Since a pint is pound, you lose a pound every time you donate blood.
56. Blood donation. It's about an hour of your time. It's About Life.

Red Cells
Red blood cells give your blood its red color. They also carry oxygen from the lungs to your body's organs and tissues and take carbon dioxide back to your lungs to be exhaled.

Platelets
Platelets are very small colorless cell fragments in your blood whose main function is to stop bleeding. An average of four to eight units of platelets from whole blood donations (or one apheresis donation) is needed to meet one patient's needs.

Plasma
Plasma is the liquid portion of your blood. Plasma transports water and nutrients to your body's tissues. Plasma also contains many proteins that help the blood to clot and fight disease.

White Cells or Leukocytes
White cells fight infection. In general, white cells provide no added benefit for a patient who needs a transfusion. Sometimes they can cause illness or transfusion reactions. In these instances, the white cells will be removed before a patient receives it. (Please see the following section on Reducing Your Risks.)

Reducing Your Risks

For some patients, there are benefits to removing white cells entirely from blood.

More than half of all donated blood currently has white blood cells removed. This process is called white cell or leukocyte (LOU-ko-cite) reduction. It may prevent a reaction to a blood transfusion and help some patients recover more quickly from surgery. Your doctor can tell you whether your condition requires white cell reduction. Because of the real and possible effects of white cells in blood transfusions, the U.S. medical and blood community is moving toward a time when all pints of blood and blood components will be leukocyte reduced.

• Anemia resulting from inadequate red blood cell production
  There are several conditions that can cause a reduced production of red blood cells, including:
  • Iron deficiency anemia. Iron deficiency anemia is the most common type of anemia and affects kids and teens of any age who have a diet low in iron or who've lost a lot of red blood cells (and the iron they contain) through bleeding. Premature babies, infants with poor nutrition, menstruating teenage girls, and those with ongoing blood loss due to illnesses such as inflammatory bowel disease are especially likely to have iron deficiency anemia.
  • Lead poisoning. When lead enters the body, most of it goes into red blood cells where it can interfere with the production of hemoglobin. This can result in anemia. Lead poisoning can also affect - and sometimes permanently damage - other body tissues including the brain and nervous system. Although lead poisoning is much less common than it once was in the United States, it still is a problem in many larger cities, especially where young children might ingest paint chips or the dust that comes from lead-containing paints peeling off the walls in older buildings.
  • Anemia due to chronic disease. Children with chronic diseases (such as cancer or human immunodeficiency virus infection) often develop anemia as a complication of their illness.
  • Anemia due to kidney disease. The kidneys produce erythropoietin, a hormone that stimulates production of red cells in the bone marrow. Kidney disease can interfere with the production of this hormone.

• Anemia resulting from unusually rapid red blood cell destruction
  When red blood cells are destroyed more quickly than normal by disease (this process is called hemolysis, pronounced: hih-mah-luh-sus), the bone marrow will make up for it by increasing production of new red cells to take their place. But if red blood cells are destroyed faster than they can be replaced, a person will develop anemia. There are several causes of increased red blood cell destruction that can affect teens:
  • G6PD deficiency. G6PD is an enzyme that helps to protect red blood cells from the destructive effects of certain chemicals found in foods and medications. When the enzyme is deficient, these chemicals can cause red cells to hemolyze, or burst. G6PD deficiency is a common hereditary disease among people of African, Mediterranean, and Southeast Asian descent.
  • Hereditary spherocytosis (pronounced: sfeer-o-sye-toe-sus) is an inherited condition in which red blood cells are misshapen (like tiny spheres, instead of disks) and especially fragile because of a genetic problem with a protein in the structure of the red blood cell. This fragility causes the cells to be easily destroyed.
  • Autoimmune hemolytic anemia. Sometimes - because of disease or for no known reason - the body's immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys red blood cells.
  • Sickle cell anemia, most common in people of African descent, is a hereditary disease that results in the production of abnormal hemoglobin. The red blood cells become sickle shaped, they cannot carry oxygen adequately, and they are easily destroyed. The sickle-shaped blood cells also tend to abnormally stick together, causing obstruction of blood vessels. This blockage in the blood vessels can seriously damage organs and cause bouts of severe pain.

• Neutropenia (pronounced: noo-truh-pee-nee-uh) occurs when there aren't enough of a certain type of white blood cell to protect the body against bacterial infections. People who take certain chemotherapy drugs to treat cancer may develop neutropenia.
• Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that attacks certain types of white blood cells (lymphocytes) that work to fight infection. Infection with the virus can result in AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), leaving the body prone to infections and certain other diseases. Newborns can become infected with the virus from their infected mothers while in the uterus, during birth, or from breastfeeding, although HIV infection of the fetus and newborn is usually preventable with proper medical treatment of the mother during pregnancy and delivery. Teens and adults can get the disease from sexual intercourse with an infected person or from sharing contaminated needles used for injecting drugs or tattoo ink.
• Leukemias (pronounced: loo-kee-mee-uhz) are cancers of the cells that produce white blood cells. These cancers include acute myeloid leukemia (AML), chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The most common types of leukemia affecting kids are ALL and AML. In the past 25 years, scientists have made great advances in treating several types of childhood leukemia, most notably certain types of ALL.

• Thrombocytopenia (pronounced: throm-buh-syte-uh-pee-nee-uh), or a lower than normal number of platelets, is usually diagnosed because a person has abnormal bruising or bleeding. Thrombocytopenia can happen when a person takes certain drugs or develops infections or leukemia or when the body uses up too many platelets. Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is a condition, which can occur in children, in which the person's immune system attacks and destroys his or her own platelets.

The body's clotting system depends on platelets as well as many clotting factors and other blood components. If a hereditary defect affects any of these components, a child can have a bleeding disorder. Some of the most common bleeding disorders are:

• Hemophilia (pronounced: hee-muh-fil-ee-uh), an inherited condition that almost exclusively affects boys, involves a lack of par ticular clotting factors in the blood. People with severe hemophilia are at risk for excessive bleeding and bruising after dental work, surgery, and trauma. They may experience episodes of life-threatening internal bleeding, even if they haven't been injured.
• Von Willebrand disease, the most common hereditary bleeding disorder, also involves a clotting-factor deficiency. It affects both males and females.

Other causes of clotting problems include chronic liver disease (clotting factors are produced in the liver) and vitamin K deficiency (the vitamin is necessary for the production of certain clotting factors).