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Blood Transfusion Is Independent Risk Factor For Women

2001 JUN 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Blood transfusions may put women at a higher risk for some types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and other blood cell cancers, researchers in a multicenter study say.

J.R. Cerhan, of the Mayo Clinic, and colleagues from the Universities of Iowa, South Carolina, and Minnesota examined data from almost 38,000 middle-age or elderly women from Iowa to test the suggested link between allogeneic blood transfusion - receiving blood from a genetically mismatched donor - and hematologic malignancy.

They found a strong association between allogeneic blood transfusions and several grades and types of lymphoma and leukemia, according to their report in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.

Women who reported receiving a blood transfusion were almost three times more likely than those who had not to develop low-grade NHL, Cerhan and coworkers reported although the risk for moderate or severe lymphoma was unaltered. These women also showed a similarly elevated risk of developing follicular or small lymphocytic, but not diffuse, NHL.

These associations were still found after taking potential confounding variables into account, the researchers noted. Such variables included smoking, red meat and fruit consumption, alcohol use and marital status.

A strong positive association was also seen between blood transfusions and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in the women studied ("Blood transfusions and risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma subtypes and chronic lymphocytic leukemia," Cancer Epidemol Biomarkers Prev, 2001;10(4):361-368).

Cerhan and coauthors concluded that "prior blood transfusion was associated with NHL and CLL, and the strongest associations were seen for low-grade NHL, particularly follicular and small lymphocytic NHL."

The corresponding author for this report is J.R. Cerhan, Mayo Clinic, Dept. of Health Science Research, 200 1st St. SW, Rochester, MN 55905 USA.

Key points reported in this study include:

* Receiving blood transfusions from genetically mismatched donors may put women at a higher risk of developing some types of blood cell malignancies

* Women who received allogeneic blood transfusions were almost three times more likely to develop low-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

* These women were also at a higher risk for chronic lymphocytic leukemia

* Increased risk after transfusion was independent of other potential risk factors

This article was prepared by Blood Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

©Copyright 2000, Blood Weekly via NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net

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