Collecting patient blood donations
Karen Roach, RVT, VTS (ECC), discusses one hospital's capability for handling blood donors as well as the types of blood collected from canine and feline patients
January is National Blood Donor Month, which brings a focus on blood donation services and needs for veterinary patients. In an interview with dvm360, Karen Roach, RVT, VTS (ECC), a team trainer at Mount Laurel Animal Hospital in New Jersey, discusses the facility's blood donor program and patient eligibiity to serve as a donor. She also addresses blood types for canine and feline patients including those most common.
The following is transcript of the video:
Karen Roach, RVT, VTS (ECC): We have a blood donor program here at Mount Laurel Animal Hospital. We have a lot of regular canine blood donors. So, there is criteria to be a blood donor. The dog has to be between the ages of 2 and 8 [years], healthy, up to date on vaccines. No diseases. Up to date on all the preventives for ticks, fleas, heartworm, and that type of thing. And they have to have the right temperament as well, because they have to lay down and have a giant needle stuck in their jugular vein.
Dogs have—it depends on the source you read—anywhere from 12 to 18 different blood types. We were mostly looking for the negative blood type because that is a universal donor, which is fantastic, but all our donors are typed. All the recipients get typed before they get blood.
Cats actually have to be pretty sedated in order to do a blood draw, so we don't use client pets for that. It has to be staff pets, and we just don't have enough to keep up with the demand. And so it's generally we have to order from blood banks, and it can be really hard to get the blood.
We have the facilities here to also spin down the blood and separate it so that we have packed cells, and then we have the plasma. So the packed cells can be refrigerated for a little over a month, and then the plasma is frozen, and that's good for up to 5 years. And then the plasma itself, if we're just giving plasma that's usually used to treat animals that have clotting disorders and if they have... protein loss and stuff like that. So it's really nice to be able to separate it and only give what we need to have.
Cats have only a couple of blood types. They've got A, they've got B, and they've got AB. A is the most common. When we get a B, we're like, ‘oh dear,’ because it's really hard to find a donor for that.
