The Irish Blood Transfusion Service has joined the Irish Cancer Society in an appeal for more blood platelet donors as the the number of patients undergoing chemotherapy increases.
The last five years has seen an increase of over 50 per cent in the demand for blood platelets with the the Transfusion Service saying it needs at least 22,000 donations of platelets each year to meet demand.
Platelets are a component of blood and are essential to enable the blood to clot properly.
The transfusion service delivers around 90 units of platelets a day, or 500 a week, to Irish hospitals, with 90 per cent of these used in the treatment of cancer patients.
The service collects platelets in two ways. The first is by pooling, which involves processing platelets from whole blood donations. It takes four whole donations to produce one dose of platelets for patients. The second method is apheresis, which is a special type of donation where the platelets are separated from the rest of the blood during donation.
At the launch of the life-saving platelet donation awareness campaign, Dr William Murphy, national medical director of the IBTS, said one apheresis donation collects the same amount of platelets as those pooled from eight to 12 whole blood donations.
"The IBTS is endeavouring to limit patients' exposure to many donors; therefore collecting platelets through apheresis is preferable to provide the safest possible product for the patient," said Dr Murphy.
"At present, only approximately 40 per cent of platelets supplied to Irish hospitals are collected by apheresis and it is the aim of the IBTS in association with the Irish Cancer Society to recruit about 2,000 new platelet donors in order to supply 100 per cent apheresis platelets within the next three years.
"We urge the general public to seriously consider signing up as platelet donors." Both the transfusion service and the ICS called for more donors and more donations to be made through apheresis.