A study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, examined whether the age and sex of blood donors need not be considered in blood allocation for transfusions.
Researchers studied data for 968,264 transfusion recipients in Sweden and Denmark. Each patient received at least one red blood cell transfusion of autologous blood or blood from unknown donors between Jan. 1, 2003, and Dec. 31, 2012.
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Of the study participants, 550,257 were women and 418,007 were men. The median age at first transfusion was 73 years.
The researchers found no association between age and/or sex of blood donors and patient survival. The absolute mortality difference between patients who received multiple units of blood from very young or very old donors and patients who received blood from donors in the median age range was 0.5 percent.